LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

-^"Mng^f In 

Slielf..4..^.irr/^ 



UNITED STATES OF Asft)RICA. 



JUN 3 1885 



Imbroqlio 



Imbroqlio 



A DRAMA 



BV 



GEORGE ALLENDER 







SAN FRANCISCO 
SAMUEL CARSON & CO., Publishers 

I20 SUTTER STREET 
1885 



Copyris'ited, /SSj, 

By SAMUEL CARSON & CO., 

San Francisco, Cal. 



A/i KL-Ais Rescf-.>ed. 



Piuijic Press Publishing House, Oakland, CaL 



DRAMATIS PERSONS, 



Edmund Malone. 

Harold, ] 

Richard, | ^^"^ °^ ^^^°"^- 

Henchman. 

Glasco. 

Maurice Bourne. 

a white form. 

a black form. 

A MAN, and A WOMAN. 

Catherine, wife of Malone. 

Charlotte, | j;)^^ ^ters of Malone. 
Helen, ) 

HORTENS TECHNOR. 

SCENE OF PLAY: California. 



TO THEATRICAL MANAGERS. 



It is not imagined that any managej- would 
care to risk his reputatiofi by the production 
of this play. Nor that any one would ap- 
propriate it to his own use without the au- 
thor's consent. But if there be any one who 
has an inclination in these directions, he may 
be remi^ided that the copyright laws of the 
United States protect DRAMA TIC as well as 
other literary productions, and that the au- 
thor will insist on his rights. 

THE AUTHOR. 



IM:BF10e>I!xlO, 



ACT I. 

SCENE. — Malone's country house; a room looking 
out upon a park. 

Present^ Catherine Malone. 
O wretched woman I, in this great change ! 
Poor was I then, but not this poverty. 
Then was I not a wife, yet husbandless. 
What is my fault — what dreadful crime is mine — 
That he should hate me so, nor tell me why? 

Enter Malone (^Catherine approaches him 
and is repelled). 
O Edmund, do not turn me from you thus. 
If business cares, or any fault of mine, 
Have made you mingle with your silence sighs, 
And look at me in this mysterious way, 
Unbosom it to her you used to love. 

(He again repels her., sighing.) 
Ah me ! I am your wife in name alone. 

(Exit Catherine.) 
Malone. 
And would to Heaven you were not even that. 



8 IMBROGLIO. 

Her very love grows hateful to my sense. . 
She is the murderer of my advancement, 
The thief who robs me of the vantage 
Of my wealth, steals my best occasions, 
Lays waste my fairest chances, stands me still; 
Till in my millions I am yet so poor 
There is no cheerful beggar but I envy. 
Enter Henchman. 

Henchman. 
I think I see your heart upon your face. 

Malone. 
I would I had your eyes to see the heart. 

Henchman. 
Eyes which see hearts are much preferred to hearts 
Which can be seen by eyes, as the world wags. 
But in the name of pills and physic, 
What means this melancholy eyeing.? 

Malone. 
Doctor, nothing is merry in my mood. 

Henchman. 
Tut, man ! has your liver or your broker 
Played you false ? I would think you sure in love. 

Malone. 
Would that I knew the sources of our loves. 

Henchman. 
They lie in dungeons where philosophers 
And fools alike are without eyes and ears. 



IMBROGLIO, 9 

Betwixt two hearts in love there plays a force 
So gently fine that only love can note it. 

Malone. 
That is the hot love of our poet days; 
But for our winter wear must there not be 
A certain similarity in lovers' ways ? 

Henchman. 
I made a poem on that subject once. 

Malone. 
Can you recall it.? 

Henchman ( trying to recollect^. 

Humph ! — we will grow old — 
It has been an age since my brain labored 
In love's service — "Similitude of thoughts" — 
"Similitude of thoughts is love's main-sail, 
Of ways and tastes and likes, its peaceful stream, 
Of nature's gifts, its everchanging verdure. 
And hearts thus joined live in unending spring." — 
The rhyme is off— "live an unending dream." 
"But when a man, by nature mighty made, 
Is to a woman of inferior graces joined" — 

{^Pauses.) 

Malone. 
I think I could almost fill out the lines. 

Henchman. 
"Though for a time he make a toy of her. 
She, in the end, will bring him foul disgust." 
The rhythm is most monstrously awry. 



10 IMBROGLIO, 

Malone. 
The sense can well forego the rhyme's presence. 
I know a friend who has a wife like that. 
What figure think you beauty cuts in love ? 

Henchman. 
No gentleman with fine aesthetic tastes 
Can ever love a merely ugly woman. 

Malone. 
What if she be ignorant and ugly, too .? 

Henchman. 
Heaven defend ! why, such a wretch should have 
A husband ignorant and ugly, too. 

Malone. 
If to those virtues you add jealousy .? 

Henchman. 
You were two holes in hell at last counting ! 
I would sooner summer with the devil 
Than winter with a jealous woman. 
But what occasion has this questioning ? 

Malone. 
Doctor, your merry mind but little knows 
That in the height of my apparent fortune 
I live in the very dregs of misery. 

Henchman (with apparent feeling). 
T beg your pardon for my levity. 
I thought that rich and happy were one word; 
For I have tramped so long in poverty 
I thought that it alone was misery. 



IMBROGLIO, 11 

M ALONE. 

This hoard of wealth you see is as the sun 

That brings my hidden misery to light, 

Uncloaks the ghastly form of my despair, 

Strips off the gaudy furbelows from one 

Who entertained the unappreciative eye 

Of poverty, showing me to myself. 

You see these arbors, variegated flowers. 

These waving fields and picture landscapes: — 

They are but deserts of a common hue. 

Music — it is a humdrum monotone; 

The fairest food sickens my appetite. 

And all my feelings, thoughts, desires have slunk 

So low into my shrouded spirit's depths 

That, come these pleasures through whatever sense, 

They all are darkened by my mind's despair. 

Henchman. 
For this depression there must be grave cause. 

Malone. 
Yes, cause and cause enough — a spectre cause ! 
Uncalled it comes fawning o'er my shoulder, 
Stares in my face, follows me in my walk, 
Crawls to my bed, haunts me in my company, 
Till I am dead with chafing and chagrin. 

Henchman. 
Would that I had the skill to serve you here. 

Malone. 
I have known you better than I have known 
You long; but if these features, bearing the stamp 



12 IMBROGLIO. 

Of honesty, be not a mockery 

Of nature, a man may place his troubles 

In your keeping. 

Henchman. 

Poor am I in the world, 
But honest in my heart. 

Malone. 

I believe you, 
And, if you will, shall make my cause your own. 
This wife of mine, if wife that may be named 
Which is a little something more than beast — 
Be not surprised, I know whereof I speak — 
This wifely incubus, which, shaming nature, 
Has, like a dismal fever, grown upon me; 
This wife-name of wifely attributes devoid — 
As love, refined desire, respect, esteem, 
In her not found, in me all uninspired. 
And in their stead disgust, foul as a toad, 
Shame and loathing, rendering all approach 
Unbearable, hatred without reprieve — 
This thing has come to be a ghastly shade, 
Haunting and dogging me unceasingly; 
One which in my poverty I had not, 
Not knowing that I had it, but, being rich. 
The skeleton is always in my eyes. 
Of all the beggary I ever heard. 
The meanest pauper in this world is he 
Who has a wife of whom he is ashamed. 
See, there she comes ! Oh, forty times a day 
Would scarce enumerate her cursed calls ! 

(Exit Malone, hurriedly.) 



IMBROGLIO, 13 

Henchman. 
How timidly she comes, as though her tread 
Were o'er a grave; perhaps it is her own. — 
A spectre legacy of his dead life ! 
A ghastly skeleton he aptly called it. 
Well, you are wedded to your skeleton, 
And in the beaten ways of married life 
You must eat with it, must let it put 
Its hideous, tasteless lips upon your own, 
Must to your bosom hug its loathesome form, 
Must let it occupy your hated bed. 
And clank and rattle its disgusting bones 
Against your tender flesh ; or else, or else — 
Ho! Henchman, is not here a goodly chance 
To make a hard bed easy for your life ? 
Enter Catherine, to the door. 

Catherine. 
Is that you, Doctor Henchman ? 

Henchman. 

Madam, yes ; 
And is there ought that he can do for you? 

Catherine. 
Is not my husband here ? 

Henchman. 

A moment since 
Your husband left. (Aside.) Quack, lover, lawyer, 

priest — 
And first the last. Ah, lady, what grief is this 



14 IMBROGLIO. 

That seems so trying to your tender heart ? 

Nay, do not sigh so deep; there is a hahii 

In (iilcad for every bruised breast, 

And dear confession for the soul is best. 

(^Aside) The devil take me ! that ice is venturesome. 

Catherine. 
Oh, Doctor, you are learned in all the things 
That great men know — 

Henchman [aside). 

A little more than fool. 

Catherine. 
Has not my husband some most dire disease ? 

Henchman (jvith importance'). 
Some little time ago your husband passed 
An era of most consecjuental illness ; 
But that he is entirely recovered 
I am convinced, at least I wholly think so. 

Catherine. 
You think so, Doctor? but, truly tell me, 
Is not that ailment lingering in him still ? 

Henchman. 
Perhaps, madam, in that relationship, 
So intimate, so tender, and so dear. 
That dwells between a husband and his wife, 
You have seen things which I, in chance ojsjrve 
Have let pass by unnoticed. Nay, madam, 
If you would have my aid, give confidence. 

Catherine. 
As you are his doctor I will tell you, 



IMBROGLIO. 15 

Hoping that you may therefrom give him aid. 
Once he was gentle and so kind, but now ^ 
He is so harsh, alas, so cruel harsh! 
And unto me, who never did him wrong. 

Henchman. 
Such symptoms are, indeed, most dangerous; 
But I will watch him in his every mood, 
And do what lies within my scope to help him. 

Catherine. 
Then on you rest the blessings of a wife, 
Who loves her husband better than her life {goifig). 

Enter Maurice Bourne. 
Ah, Maurice! I thought you had forsaken us. 
Bourne. 
Korsakenyou? why, bless my life! what made you 
think so? I have been so monstrous busy in 
the mines of late I have not had the time to come, 
but, being at the bay — ah, doctor! 

Henchman. 
How are you, sir? 

Bourne, 
In a fair way for one who loves the world too 
much. As I say, being at the bay, 1 thought 
I would come down and spend a day or two in 
your new home. Are the children home from 
college yet ? 

Catherine. 

I knew it was the children you had come to see. 
They will be home to-day. 



16 IMBROGLIO, 

Bourne. 
So Harold wrote me. How's Malone ? I should 
like to see him. 

Catherine. 

We will go and find him, Maurice. 

Bourne. 
Kate, it seems to me you are not looking well. 

Catherine. 
Never better, never better in my life. 

{Exeunt Catherine and Bourne.) 

Henchman. 
Something is here: — I recollect Malone 
Once told me that this fellow loved his wife 
Before he married her. A shadow's shadow's 
Food enough to fat an army of suspicions. 
Re-enter Malone. 

Malone {speaking of Bourne). 
I know that voice that always laughs at me, 
And with more quib than wit forever rails. 

Henchman. 
I warrant it; his ways are mean in that. 
But then you know, Malone, there are some men 
Who, being the cause of others' misery, 
Can well afford to be hilarious, 
And with a kind of caustic raillery 
Slabber their victims o'er. Oh, there are men, 
And men in plenty, in this world like that. 

Malone. 
1 would the devil had all men like him. 



IMBROGLIO. n 

Henchman. 
I am warm in the merit of your cause; 
For I have watched the current married world 
To find the reason of its great disorder; 
And I have seen a host of wedded men, 
On whom kind nature heaped her richest stores, 
Who by a fault of their unthinking youth 
Have married women much beneath their grade. 
Then when the era of awakening came — 

Malone. 
Oh, when the era of awakening comes ! 

Henchman. 
And they behold their joindure thus awry, 
Their lives fall in a rot, these mighty ships 
Stripped sailless in mid ocean, where they float 
To chafe the waves and turn to water-logs. 

Malone. 
Oh, how my life fits in the die of your 
Description! Your wisdom, sir, is great. 

Henchman. 
Mere nothing, man! These are but facts which fools 
In the mad house, twenty to the score can see; 
But the value of all facts lies in their 
Inference. To be unhappy married 
Is one thing, but to know the cause thereof, 
And to provide a remedy, puzzles 
Philosophers and stands our legislators. 

Malone. 

In faith, I think, to do so must be so. 
3 



18 IMBROGLIO. 

Henchman. 
Unpleasant truths most oft to error lead; 
Distasteful facts are cunning to deceive; 
Mistaken marriage is the broad highway 
To desecrated homes and blasted lives. 
Yet wise men in their foolish wisdom hold 
That happiness is nurtured, vice made less, 
By keeping these distorted things in state; 
While I, poor fool! of foolish wisdom void, 
Would cure the evil in its primal cause — 
Unloose the band of each niismated pair, 
And set the tortured birds at liberty. 

Malone. 
Sir, I have heard you speak of poverty; 
And now I shame myself, that, being rich, 
In my lament I have not thought of yours. 
Henceforth my purse is open as my heart. 

Henchman {feigning). 
I have a sudden weakness overcomes me. 
Dear sir, I have no words to give you thanks. 

Malone. 

Nor need have none; kind actions best are thanks. 

Henchman. 

Oh, that I had the might to dress my thanks in acts. 
Malone. 

And so you have if you will but devise 
A plan to rid me of this incubus. 

Henchman. 
Ti.is is sudden like — I will think on it. 



IMBROGLIO, 19 

Malone. 
There is no reason for concealment here; 
Give me your unpremeditated thoughts. 

Henchman. 
It were best the matter lay in the mind 
A night; I cannot think so suddenly. 

Malone {giving him his pocket book). 
Receive this in the name of friendship, sir; 
A pittance for kindness, not for service. 

Henchman. 
Ah, Malone, I, who have been kicked and cuffed 
By this cold, heartless world, appreciate 
The magnanimity of such a friend. 

Malone. 
To me the sum is nothing. Lift this load 
And I will give you such a sum as will. 
In its mere interest, keep you for your life 
In all the luxury your mind can wish. 

Henchman. 
You will do that? You will take this hungry wolf 
And strangle him.? You will brace these old legs 
While going down the declivity of time? 
You will do this.? — ah, then I bear my heart; 
I tell you what my eyes have seen; which, but 
For this and for your friendly misery, 
Had, for a woman's sake, been sealed forever. 
How this complex emotion stirs my soul ! 

{Laughs aside as if weepi?ig.') 



20 IMBROGLIO. 

Malone {aside). 
I think the offer takes his conscience in. 

Henchman. 
There need be no invention for your cause, 
Where now too much reality exists; 
But, for the modesty of womanhood, 
Will not your wife consent to a divorce ? 

Malone. 
As masters free their slaves ! I am her serf, 
So mean that she will neither give nor sell 
Me liberty, slicking her tyranny 
With talk of the divinity of marriage, 
And p.U old proverbs, soaked in ignorance. 
Of children's rights, society's great claim, 
Of wives and husbands in the world to come, 
And all the priestly clap- trap she has learned. 

Henchman. 
And, if she had good cause, do you not think 
She would herself proceed for a divorce ? 

Malone. 
Not though I charged her nose with the foul stench 
Of all debauchery, and run the gamut 
Of every legal cause before her eyes. 
Henchman (aside). 
How vain these husbands are! The shameless thing! 
Then you yourself must take the plaintiff's part. 

Malone. 
In Heaven's name, upon what ground may I ? 



IMBROGLIO. t\ 

Henchman. 
If you had seen what I have seen, and what, 
I take it, any man with eyes might see, 
You would not ask, upon what ground may I. 
Did you not tell me that this fellow Bourne — 

Malone. 
Do you hear. Henchman, I have come to hate 
That much loved man, my partner though he be 
With hatred such as one dares scarcely own. 

Henchman. 
I doubt not you have ample cause for hate. 

Malone. 
Why, so I have : Malone is but the shade, 
Bourne the mighty sun of all we do. 

Henchman. 
Poh, man ! that is a ground for children's fights. 
You have a graver cause to hate this man. 

Malone. 
Do you think so? 

Henchman. 

As certainly as sin. 
Did you not tell me once that Maurice loved 
Your wife before you married her? (Aside.) Well, 
laugh ! 

Malone. 

Why, now, you make me laugh. Yes, so he did, 

But what has that to do with my dislike ? 

You think me jealous ? — now you make me laugh. 



22 IMBROGLIO. 

Henchman. 
Turn! turn! there is much music that is never heard. 

Malone. 
Why, that was five and twenty years ago. 

Henchman. 
A good long period for secret work. — 
You won your wife spite of Maurice's wooing ? 

Malone. 
And would to Heaven he had drawn the prize. 
I would most willingly convey it to him 
By deed of gift. 

Henchman. 
Perhaps there is no need. 
That eldest son of yours has not your eyes. 

Malone (with interest). 
So ? — why, now, I never noticed that. 

Henchman. 
Your youngest daughter Helen's monstrous fair, 
With golden locks, for parents dark as hers. 

Malone. 
I have observed and often thought of that. 

Henchman. 
It is a marvelous phenomenon, 
A great perturbation in old nature, 
When children white are of black parents born 

Malone. 
Something is most mysterious in this. 



IMBROGLIO, 23 

Henchman. 
Climate, sir, California climate. 

Malone. 
Indeed, doctor, this is a serious joke. 

Henchman. 
I used it to that purpose once. 
, Malone. 

You did ? 
Henchman. 
Your wife and this fair Bourne, Helen and I — 
You being away were once conversing. 
"Madam," said I, "how wondrous fair she is," 
Meaning Helen. 

Malone. 

You said that, what said she ? 

Henchman. 
Not a word. 

Malone. 

Not a word? — Dumfounded guilt! 
Henchman. 
But you had been amazed, if not amused, 
To see how crimsoned up her face became. 

Malone. 
You say she blushed ? 

Henchman. 

A sure indicative 
Of certain guilt — (aside) or beauteous modesty. 



H IMBROGLIO. 

M ALONE (aside). 
There's more than plotting here. — When took this 
place ? 

Henchman. 

You mean the blush ? 

Malone. 
Heaven and earth, how keen 
That dagger is ! 

Henchman. 

This does not hurt you, sir 1 
Malone. 
You run me through and ask me, Does it hurt ? — 
No difference. Have you seen more than this ? 

Henchman. 
Oh, somewhat, with the eye of inference. 

Malone. 
Your thoughts are too much muffled, sir; speak 
plain. 

Henchman. 

Did you not say that, since your marriage, Bourne 
Has followed you about from place to place 
For all these years ? 

Malone. 

I said that he and I 
Had worked and gone together through these years. 

Henchman. 
Drown words; it is the substance that I seek. 

Malone. 
Think you that Maurice had a motive there ? 



IMBROGLIO. 25 

Henchman. 
Motive ? oh, no, no motive ; motive ! no. 
Men do not act from motive in this world. 
Disinterested friendship moves this world. 

Ma LONE (aside). 
There's an apparent venom in that speech. — 
And think you these facts are inferential ? 

Henchman. 
Inferential ? oh, no ; nothing, it seems, 
To you is inferential ; but some one 
Grossly suspicious might draw conclusion — 

Malone. 
What conclusion, Henchman, what conclusion ? 

Henchman. 
That Maurice is a wondrous, curious man, 

Malone. 
How curious 7 That hollow laugh has meaning. 

Henchman. 
Meaningless as gnats, — monstrous credulity! 
Yet, in the trodden way of common sense. 
It is a little strange, or ludicrous. 
That Bourne should have followed you, or, rather, 
Shall I say your — ah! no difference — lived, 
Did you not say, in the same house, and slept 
In the same — ah ! pardon me ; I mean ate — 
Devilish brotherly!— at the same table ? 

Malone. 
Henchman, you have seen that you dare not tell. 



26 IMBROGLIO, 

Henchman. 
I have seen that — 

Malone. 
You have seen what, Henchman? 
Henchman. 
How monstrous color-bUnd a husband is 
To that another man may see — with his nose. 

Malone. 
Ha! this interests me not. I care not 
For this woman, though one and all the men — 

Henchman. 
Nor for your children either, I suppose. 

Malone. 
Dare you cast suspicion on my children ? 

Henchman. 
/ did not do it. 

Malone (aside). 

Fool to be thus touched ! — 
And think you this fellow still loves my wife ? 

Henchman. 
Loves, man? — think! O, villainous presumption 
That fish should lose their taste for water ways! 

Malone. 
O, doctor, these dark insinuations — 

Henchman. 
Insinuations ? 



IMBROGLIO. 27 

Malone. 
And deep conclusions 
Are the very logic of unkindness, 
Do you imagine; lies it in fancy — 

Henchman. 
My dear sir, fancy is reason's ruin. 
When I became a doctor I buried 
My imagination with my first patient- — 
Till resurrection, requiescant in pace. 
I simply put together this and that, — 
Eyes, hair, complexion, love of long standing, 
Opportunity, and inclination. 
The general slothfulness of husbands; 
And from this matrix draw conclusion forth 
That all these years you have been made a dupe. 

Malone. 
Heaven and earth, how rises now the nightmare 
Of the hideous past in phases multiform 
To show me to mine own stupidity ! 
Henchman (aside). 
'Tis very well; the argument sounds fair. 

Malone. 
Henchman, perhaps in honesty, perhaps 
In perfidy, perhaps in wicked league 
With these, my enemies, you put me on the rack. 

Henchman. 
But act this part, and you'll be rid of her. 

Malone. 
Act, man ! your logic has all act dismayed ; 



28 IMBROGLIO, 

Henceforth I am in substance simply this: 
I care not for her, but to be the dupe 
Of their foul cunning, and have suspicion 
On my children cast ; to be the point for wits 
To shoot their venom at, the theme for jokes, — 
I will at once advise with my attorney. 
And bring this beastly marriage to an end. 

Henchman. 
Softly now ! be not in too much haste. 

Malone. 
Time treads a sluggard pace till I have put 
This woman where her acts condemn her. 

Henchman. 

Then if you will be gone thus hastily, 
When you return, fetch with you your attorney, 
That he may see his cause upon the ground, 
And I will show to you, or him, or any man, 
What neither you, nor he, nor any man should see. 

{Exit Malone.) 
Now for the very solace of his mind 
He wants a reason for his villainy. 
Shadows will do, but I will give him more ; 
For in this small, round compass of a brain 
There lives a being that possesses might 
To make a white-robed angel black as night. 

{Exit Henchman.) 

Re-enter Malone, with his hat and overcoat, 
Malone. 

et, if I but had the eyes of love 



IMBROGLIO. 29 

To see these facts, what mountains would they be. 
His eyes, hair his, complexion his — nonsense! 
Still an array of most damnable facts — 
What made me laugh at first now makes me think, 
And with annoyance doubles up my hate. 

Enter Catherine. 
Why, now, I had not thought you cared so much 
For my poor company in these late days. 

Catherine. 
Oh, Edmund ! I have only come to say 
Our children will be home to-day, and beg you 
Save me in their presence from harsh treatment. 
Enter Harold to the door. 
Malone. 
Well, have you done. 

Catherine. 
Oh, will you not tell me — 
Malone. 
Still here ? Oh, you can cry, and cry, and cry. 

Harold {aside). 
What is't I hear ? 

Catherine. 
Oh, just one little word, 
And have I wronged you — 
Malone. 
Have you not wronged me ? 
Catherine. 
If so none knows but Heaven — 



30 IMBROGLIO. 

Malone. 

Nor need know. 
And there are things which Heaven best know not. 

Catherine. 
If ever I have wronged you, tell me of my fault, 
And I will go upon these knees and beg 
Of you forgiveness, the humblest penitent 
In all this world of sinners; {kneels) speak, Ed- 
mund. 

Malone. 

That one should have the face of honesty! — 
No? you will not go? Then I will leave you. 

{Going.) 
Catherine. 
Please, Edmund, tell me, for our children's sake. 
{Exit Malone, y^//6>v\vt'^ /m' Catherine.) 
Harold. 
What ! what ! now what is this ? Did I see right? 
My father turned a brute —a husband beast ! 
Nor was he given to drinking. His mind 
Must be deranged to speak so to his wife. 
See where she kneels, still clinging to him, 
And still beseeching him to tell her why. 
Unseen I will observe their further acts. 
That I may catch the clue to tb.is offense. 

{ScLretes Jiimself.) 
Enter Richard. 
Richard! Richard! 



IMBROGLIO. 31 

Richard. 

W hat's the matter, Harold ? 
You arc too much given to this way of late, 

Harold. 
Sec where our parents come, O Richard, see ! 
Our mother all in tears begging our father — 

Richard. 

Something is like offense in that; listen ! 

(^T/iev secrete themsches.') 
Re-enter ViM.o'nv. followed l)y Catherine. 

Catherine. 
Edmund, hear me. 

Ma LONE. 

No more, no more, I say: 
I will liave nothing more to do wilh you. 

Harold {to Richard). 
Do you mark that ! Now Heaven see those te.irs ! 

Catherine. 
But why, oh why, will you not tell me why? 

Malonic. 
Why ! why ! and so let why your answer be 
Until you ask yourself. 

Harold. 

He is turned iron, 
Catherine. 
Heaven well knows you hale me witiiout cause. 



32 IMBROGLIO. 

Malone. 
Heaven well knows — O Kate ! Kate ! Oh, shame, 
shame ! 

Catherine. 

You have gone mad. This is the curse of riches. 

Malone. 

Riches, indeed ! Indeed, riches ! Away ! 

Out on this handy platitude of thieves! [Takes 

hold of her.) 
Can you look me in the face ? O Kate, shame ! 

{Exit hurriedly.) 
Catherine. 

Father in Heaven, open thou my heart 
To any wrong I ever did my husband. 
Oh, I thus harshly used could die, but that 
I live to once more see my darling ones. 
To me, O God, preserve my children's love; 
Oh, let them not forsake me in my woe ! 

{Exit Catherine.) 
Harold and Richard come forivard. 
Richard. 
You have eyes and ears; have you not a tongue.? 

Harold. 
I would I had not either eyes or ears. 

Richard. 
Why, then, most like, you would not have a tongue. 
Come, come; we have seen what children should 
not see. 



UIBROGLIO. 33 

Harold. 
We did not see it; these things but seem to be. 
The world does not exist but in our minds. 
We are not here, but only think we are. 

Richard. 
Fling such philosophy to blmd puppies! 
This self-delusion is the beggar's trade. 
We have seen and seen, and now where lies the 
wrong .? 

Harold. 

Noted you how he sighed, as he would break 
His heart, when he exclaimed, O Kate! Oh shame! 

Richard. 
I tell you, Harold, I see these matters 
With the plain eyes of common sense. I say 
Our mother is imposed on by these acts. 

Harold. 
O God, that we should come to find it so ! 

Richard. 
Come, Harold, such things are not uncommon. 

Harold. 
Indeed, I think they must be very common. 

Richard. 
Well, we must find a way to heal this wrong. 
What can be done by children we must do. 
You are my elder, and have a gentler way; 
Besides, our father loves you with a warmer, 
But I do not say a better, love - 
As nature ofttimes will demear herself. 
3 



34 IMBROGLIO. 

Therefore to cure this matter rests with you; 
I will enforce you as lies in my power. 
Come, now, Harold; it may not be so bad. 
^ Harold. 

Richard, I think I see much more in this 
Than you are willing that your mind should see. 

1 hear our sisters; not a word to them. 

{They sta?id apart.') 
Enter Charlotte and Helen. 
Charlotte. 
What means this speaking silence ? O Harold, 
Is mother sick.? 

Helen. 

Some one is sick, I know. 
Richard, what is it ? What is it, Richard ? 

Harold. 
Are you not glad that you are home ? 
Is it not beautiful ? How changed 
From the barren hills we used to see ! 

Charlotte. 
No, no, Harold; what has happened? 
Tell me, Harold, what has happened. 

Richard {to Helen). 
There, there, you little imp — if you must know, 
Harold and I have had a little tilt. 

Harold. 
Yes, yes; your hand, Richard, your hand! 

Charlotte. 
Now this is not the case; for I well know 



IMBROGLIO. 35 

That these unnatural ways and words are 

But assumed, and have a meaning of their own. 

If you love me, tell me why you act so. 

Harold. 
Take them away, Richard; it is no use — 
Nature thus injured cannot act a part. 
Go find your mother. 

Charlotte and Helen. 
Mother! 

Harold. 

No, no; go. 

In time I will relate it all to you. 

{^Exeunt Charlotte and Helen, excitedly^ 
followed by Richard.) 
Yet seemed she innocent of all offense — 
Heaven and earth how gross his manner was! 
And after all this age of happy life 
To treat her thus? And yet there seemed a kind 
Of madness in his acts, and, as it were, 
Offended lunacy, thrust into madness 
By some offensive cause; there must be cause. 
Enler Bourne. 

Bourne. 
Hello! home from college? 

Harold. 

Yes, I am here. 
Bourne. 
Here, Harold ! why this is not your manner. 



36 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 
What is it? The cause, Maurice, the reason? 
I know that you will tell me what it is. 

Bourne. 
Cause? reason? cause for what, in Heaven's name? 
What have you seen to make you act this way? 

Harold. 
Seen, Maurice, seen! now what have I not seen? 
My father, Maurice, your friend, my father? 

Bourne. 
Well, what of him, Harold ? Is he not well ? 

Harold. 
Lately have you seen nothing strange in him? 
Has he forgot his friends? Sj)eaks he not 
To them crabbedly? Walks he not head-bowed, 
Brow-clouded, muttering? Does he attend 
Aswas his wont to business? Or has he — 

Bourne. 
Pardon me, Harold, concerning these things 
I am a stranger. If with your father 
You have had some trouble, go and mend it. 

(^x// .Bourne.) 
Harold. 

Then his complaint is special to his wife. 
Enter Henchman. 

Henchman. 
How's my young Cartesian ? Ah, Harold ! I am 
glad to see you back, for I have much to tell you. 



IMBROGLIO. 37 

Harold. 
Yes, yes; has he been sick long ? 

Henchman. 
I hear you took high honors at the University — 

Harold. 
What is his affliction, Doctor ? 
Henchman. 

And dare say you are now prepared to revolu- 
tionize the world, particularly ^mmatters ethical 
{laughs), that being a prime theme with young col- 
legians. How I remember — 
Harold. 

Please you, sir, what ailment has my father? 

Henchman- 

Your father ? ailment ? Have you not seen him ? 

Harold. 

I have seen him, yet I have not seen him. 

Henchman. 

How strange you act ! Have you but just arrived ? 

Harold. 

I think I came a thousand years ago, 

If time be measured by events, not clocks. 

Is not my father mentally deranged? 

Henchman. 

Have you seen ought indicative of that ? 



38 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 
I have seen, I have seen, and I have heard — 
But to be direct, sir, I saw in him 
Somewhat of harshness toward my mother, 
And I had not observed the thing before. 

Henchman. 
Indeed ! did he accuse her of any wrong ? 

Harold. 
None that I could catch; he came upon her 
As a fearful hurricane sweeps down upon 
An unoffending house of God. 

Henchman. 

Harold, 
I think your father a very honest man. 

Harold. 
Why, so did I. 

Henchman. 

A conscientious man, 
And that he would do no one an injustice. 

Harold. 
As such I always have esteemed my father. 

Henchman. 
One slow to anger, of a gentle heart, 
Having forgiveness strong implanted in him. 

Harold. 
Yet why acts he toward my mother thus? 

Henchman {half aside). 
Perhaps he has some cause. 



IMBROGLIO, 39 

Harold. 

What said you, sir? 
Henchman. 
Nothing. 

FIarold. 

Yes, but you did though, about cause. 
Henchman. 

Oh ! that surely he could not have a cause. 

Harold. 
Think you that he is causeless utterly ? — 
Mere malice, deliberate cruelty ? 
Henchman. 
It is not meet that I should speak of this. 
Keep quiet, Harold, and closely observe. 
He who sees nothing, sometimes sees the most; 
Hear nothing, the better to hear it all; 
Keep your ears primed and keep your tongue 

silent. 
Withal, trust Henchman as your steadfast friend. 

i^Exit Henchman.) 

Harold. 
Now, if I find him so, which I hope not. 
If torture be his game, which I hope not — 
Enter Catherine. 

Catherine. 
My boy, my boy, you have come home at last ! 
No mother ever longed to see her son 
As 1 have longed to see you. Harold. 



40 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 
Yes, I have come. 

Catherine. 

Oh, how the weary sun 
Has dragged along, making the minutes hours, 
And every hour a day, and every day a year 
'I'ill you should come. 

Harold. 
Well, mother, I am here. 
Catherine. 
Why, Harold, how strange your voice! and your 

dear face 
Is by deep furrows and high ridges marred. 

Harold. 
Yes; I had a sudden sickness lately. 

Catherine. 
And did not let me know it? 
Harold. 

Well, mother, 
What's the news ? Have you written everything 
Wliich has importantly occurred since I, 
Some nine months past, left home? How is father? 

. Catherine. 

Well, Harold, I hope. 

Harold. 
Nay, hut how is father? 
Catherine. 
Why, Harold, I do not catch the meaning 
Of your strange manner. 



IMBROGLIO. 41 

Harold. 

Now undeceive me, 
Mother; — who than I should know this trouble. 

Cathkrink. 
Of what trouble do you speak ? 

Harold. 

What trouble? 
No more ! no more ! I say Twill have tio thing more 
To do with you I Ha f can you look me in the face 1 
O Kate, Kate ! O, shame, shame / What trouble 

God! 
Such as o'erthrows the sovereign majesty 
Of home, topples the universe of man 
And wife, flings children to the wolfish world, 
And to a cinder burns up holy love. 
Catherine. 

Harold, my heart is broke! 

Harold. 

There, mother, 

1 overheard him. Now, what cause has he 
To thus belabor and demean his wife ? 

Catherine. 
If Heaven knows, it is a secret here. 

Harold. 
What ! will he assign no reason, mother? 

Catherine. 
What you have seen and heard is all I know; 
Beyond this step can no appeal extend him. 



42 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 
When came and how grew on tliis disposition ? 

Catherine. 
A little after you had gone from home 
A kind of coohiess overcame your father; 
He seldom spoke to me; answered me yes 
And no, and grew impatient if I spoke 
Too frequently to him. Then he would sit 
As in a reverie, his mind away 
On distant objects, from which he waked 
To glance askance at me and mutter curses. 

Harold. 
You say he would do that ? 

Catherine. 

In company 
My presence seemed to give him great offense; 
Seeing which, I often on some trifle 
Excused myself; when, pleased, he went alone; 
Next, for long days he would remain away, 
At which, if I but hinted at the cause. 
He shortly snapi)ed me up; and then, at length, 
His manner changed — he would sigh like a moan. 
Then fiercely glare at me and shame me so 
As I had done some crime too bad for words. 

Harold. 
And can you not conjecture at the cause ? 

Catherine. 
Oh, I have thought and thought, till dazed my 
mind 



IMBROGLIO. 43 

Would sink into bewilderment. Sometimes 

I think he has become deranged in mind; 

Again, suspicion seizes me that since his wealth 

He has outgrown me, Harold, and that now 

His great ambition seeks to travel ways 

Where Heaven never meant that I should follow. — 

That now he looks upon me as the relic, 

Much detested, of his departed state; 

And that he wants a fiiirer face than mine. 

Harold. 
Of such depravity, so monstrous grown, 
Think you the human heart is capable ? 

Catherine. 
No, Harold; those names you must not call it. 
But will you try some soft and gentle means 
To win your father back ? 

Harold. 

If such fair means 
Will the good end accomplish, mother. 
None of a grosser kind shall I employ. 

Catherine. 
Well, Harold, if the most gentle pleading 
Of his wife and son can make no movement 
In your father's passing strange estrangement. 
It is no use to try the other way. 
And if we fail — 

Harold. 
But, mother, we'll not fail. 
Catherine. 
Oh, Harold, you will not forsake me, then ! 



44 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 
Unless this little dot of earth forsakes 
The mighty sun, you who are more to me 
Than sun to earth, can never be forsaken. 
'Twould be as though I should forsake my heart, 
Forget to breathe, or put my own eyes out. 

Catherine. 

And if he will remain unmoved by us 

Then I can die. When I have passed that sphere 

Where I am worthy to be called his wife; 

When in his eyes I raise but foul disgust, 

When sight of me produces shame in him; 

When I become a stop to his ambition, — 

Oh, then I want to die, I want to die ! 

(yExii Catherine.) 
Harold. 

Raises disgust! — shames him! — unworthy! — she? 

A stop to his ambition ! — my mother? 

And withal his wife, who through so many years 

Of poverty and hardship followed him 

His wiUing slave ! — now when the years begin 

To fall upon her — is it conceivable ? — 

To be cast into the street, like a shoe 

In its owner's service now past service, — 

She, the mother of his children, his wife, 

In sickness who watch, for him denied herself — 

Oh, if I find it so, and he relent not, 

Farewell all gentle ways; wipe from my heart 

All love I bear him, if he prove callous I 



IMBROGLIO. 46 

Now may eternal justice be my guide, 

And may the blackest fiends of darkness seize 

My blacker soul if I defend her not ! 

{Exit Harold.) 



46 IMBROGLIO, 



ACT II. 
SCENE. — Malone's country house; a room. 
Enter Harold a7id Charlotte. 
Charlotte. 
Oh, act to nature foreign ! Poor mother ! — 
I scarcely can conceive how it could be. 

Harold. 
No more could I, had I not seen the sight. 
Charlotte. 

Oh, I am glad I did not witness it. 
Such awful discord — 

Harold. 
Discord? why, Charlotte, 
It was the clash of nature in rebellion. 
If all at once my body had been hurled 
Into a well of fierce up-pointed swords, 
I could not more have suffered than I did. 

Charlotte. 
And all your pain is imaged on my heart. 
In this distressful state what shall we do ? 

Harold. 
First, we must find the cause of father's acts. 



IMBROGLIO. 47 

If they be motiveless, that argues madness. 
And so they may be; for these adventures 
Into which he has been thrust so quickly, 
The incident anxiety, and strain, 
The whirl and dizzy height of his new life, 
May have dethroned the guidance of his mind, 
Which might on mother, me, or any one 
Vent out its undirected, splceny thoughts; 
Perhaps, though buried in a mint of gold, 
He thinks he sees starvation's hungry form; 
Or any of the thousand fantasies 
Thai dwelling too much on a single thought 
Engenders. 

Charlotte. 

If we should find it so. 
How heavenly gentle must our actions be 
That we observe no strangeness in his ways; 
Attention paying that we disclose not 
Our opinion of his infirmity; 
For such things surely would increase his mood. 

Harold. 
And we must try by such inventive skill, 
As well considered ingenuity 
May devise — as lively, entertaining themes. 
Laughter, new company, diverting scenes, 
The theatre — but not the solemn play — 
To tide him from this single rocky reef 
Whereon his mind is strand, into the great 
And varied sea of thought; not argue him. 
For in these one-thought minds, upon their themes 



48 IMBROGLIO, 

Reason being astray, to reason liim 

Would be the chief of fallacies. And next, 

It may be possible our father thinks, 

And not dishonestly, that our dear mother 

Has committed some grave fault, which, perhaps, 

May have some slight foundation in the fact. 

ClIARLOTTK. 

If that be so- 

Harolp. 

The remedy is plain : 

Knowing the fault, our mother will amend it. 

But there's the last dark inference, that stares 

Its monster head aloft above them all. 

Charlotte. 

Alas! what may that be? 

Harold. 

That he has come 

To hate our mother — 

Charlotte. 

Cruel, cruel thought! 

Harold. 

That in his wealth he longs for some f:iir one, 

Who will to more advantage show him off, 

And in a blaze of jewels dazzle out 

The eyes of rivalry the world over. 

Charlotte. 

To doff our mother for a younger wife? 

Oh, Heaven defend! I cannot think so. 

I rather would be dead than see that day. 



IMBROGLIO, 49 

I Iarom). 
And so would T my licart is sick at but 
The thouLj,ht of it. Yet here our duty rests, 
'I'o find the trouble's cause and weed it out; 
In tliis, dear sister, you must be my aid. 

CilARLOTI'i;. 

My mind is as your own, and you shall be 

The rudder of my acts ; but (), dear brother, 

Let no niistaken /eal of ours deei)en 

I'his trouble and increase our parents' ^Tief, 

As ofttimes over-/ealousness in children may {{:i;o. 

O Harold, look, look, where comes the winter 
Of our lives, that nine months i)ast we left 
In spring ! 

I Iarom ). 

C) (lod! my father, it is he. 

ClIARLOl'll-;. 

Sec how his form is drooped! how sad his face ! 

Harold. 
How slow he walks I I think that he has aged 
Ten years since two days i)ast I saw him here. 

CnARi,o'i"ii';. 
See how he stops, absently pondering ! 

Harolo. 
(io to him, Charlotte — I in the next room 
Will wait — converse with him, then haste to mc 
And tell me what he says and how he acts. 

(^Exii Charlotte.) 



60 IMBROGLIO. 

Etiter HiCNCiBiAN. 

Hi:nciiman. 
llaroKl, has your father yet returned home? 

Haroi.d. 
Yonder is coming one who miglit be called 
My father. 

lIl'.NCIlMAN. 

Indeed, he has been called that. 

1 lAKOl.n. 

Yet one would hardly think him to be such. 

Henchman. 
Indeed, one might or one might not think so, 
And yet to doubt it were a grievous doubt. 

HAROi.n. 
Your speech is too f:ir olT ; I i)ray you, sir — 

lllCNCllMAN. 

Be more direct and damn myself; speak })lain 
And be turned out. Honesty is a fool 
That begged, starved, and ended in a gutter 
For being too straightforward with his friend. 

Haroi,1). 
If there be any meaning in these words — 

Henchman. 
Oh, the fickleness of life, of life, and man, 
And women, too, for the matter of that ! 

Hakolu. 
By Heaven, you will olVentl me in this way ! 



IMliNUCLlO. 51 

If youJi.'ivc .'iiiylliiiijj, to s;iy, sjjcak oiil. 

1 1 I';n(IIMan. 
Oh, 1)(; r.'Uilious, ll.uold, he dclicilc 
Wlicn yon .-iddrcss your slri( ken f.idici. 

I I AI-.'OI.I). 

Sir, I shall so address him us hccomcs 
The reverend position that he holds. 

I I l',N( lliVIAN . 

Be much more dehcate. If your discourse 
Should hear upon his trouhlc, sj)eak to him 
As one in hcallli sp(,-;iks to a strirkcti m.in ; 
I'or troiihle nwikes a kind of wounded niind 
That takes offense where no offense is meant. 

I I AKOIJ). 

I shall in all things guard myself, and give 
(Jffense where nothing hut offense sh(;uld he. 

lil'lNCIIMAN. 

Yet it were hest you tou* h not on his grief 

I I Ai;oi,o. 

Sir, I shall therein he the judge; good day. 

{/Cxii IlAkoi-D.j 

I I KNTII^MAN. 

I la! the villainy of it is tor; great 
lie seemed not to catch my heastly meaning. 
It crooks the native straightness of my w;i,ys. 
1 must see Malone and put liim on his j-nard. 
It slimes me over with a filtiiy ( o.it. 
Money is a frierjd, mf>»ney is a friend ! 



52 IMBROGLIO, 

He must not conic ii])on liini unaware. — 

This money will i)rotcct me in my age. 

Ha ! a thought that might become a monarcli ! 

What if 1, having divorced Malonc, 
ShouUl marry his widow? - Sound old brain[)an ! 
It behooves me now to steer my fragile bark 
In the middle of possibilities. 
She seems to like me — I will think on it. 
But she would have no money when divorced. 
I might convince Malone — it argues well 
It is his moral duty to divide 
His money with his wife.— Sound old braini)an ! 
Ah ! here she comes, and while the notion's on me 
I will feel her inclination to mo. 
Enter Catherine. 

Catherine. 
Doctor, do you know why my husband left? 

Henchman. 
Alas! dear madam, I am in the dark. 

Cathi:rine. 
I thought, perhaps, that, from your knowledge of 

him, 
You might discern the motive of his acts. 

Henchman. 
True it is that every thought and act 
Is fountained in a cause, as true it is 
That all the movements of the universe 
Are motived in the bosom of sweet nature, 



IMBROGLIO. 63 

WIio sometimes temptingly reveals herself; 
I5iit who can grasp the forces infinite 
'i'hat focus in a sunbeam ! So, madam, 
Is il. wiih our ;iris ; motives do sometimes 
Play upon the face, but sometimes they defy 
Our cicjsest* scrutiny, laughing to scorn 
'i'lie efforts of our lawyers and logicians 
To uncoil them, and so your husband's seem. 

O'J'IlICKfNK. 

JUit has he not let, fall soirx- little worrl 

I'Vom which you could discern his conduct's cause? 

MliNCMMAN. 

Your liusband is discreet, and knf>wing well 
My oft asserted friendship for his wife 
I le would be slow to do or say to mc 
Aught that would cast reproacli on you. 
CA'niKRiNi';. 

Rej^roach ! 
I am so ignorant of any cause 
Why he should cast reproach on me. 

HlCNCHMAN. 

And I; 

Vet there are those whr; from a. I.'i.ck of cause 
Do sometimes cast reproach. 
Catherine. 

I cannot think 
1 Ic means me harm. 

Henchman. 

Yet by these fiendish acts — 



54 IMBROGLIO. 

But jKirdon, madam, 1 may say too much. 
I only say that meaning good and acting bad 
Are very distant stars. 

Catherine. 

I am of wives 
The most unhappy in this world. Ah, me! 

Hknciiman. 
There, gentle lady, take it not to heart. 
Although your husband may dislike you 
There is another one esteems you greatly, 
Seeing in her whom Edmund so despises 
One whose mighty soul is ever filled 
With all the virtues of true womanhood. 

Catherine. 
Your kindness twice affects me: I thank you 
For your sympathy, yet there are daggers 
In it, which make me think that he has said 
Much more than you will tell in disrespect of me. 

Henchman. 
Alas ! madam, I fear — yet 1 would say 
No more, lest some unfeeling one might think 
I had between a wife and husband gone. 

Catherine. 
A thought so base is foreign to your soul. 
And I, who am deprived of him I love, 
Appreciate your kindness, though it pain my heart. 

Henchman. 
Ah, dearest lady, when the heart is robbed 



IMBROGLIO, 56 

Of that without which it is an aching void, 
Sweet nature, by her suffering children pained, 
Does seek to fill the chasm with another love. 
Ah, lady, how his acts, unhusbandlike, 
Inflame my ire, and your too gentle ways 
Excite my pity ! Dear madam, I was born 
Neath the old regime, before the slime of greed 
Had blotted out the wealth of chivalry. 
Oh, that I might proclaim myself your slave! 
Here is my arm; but intimate the thought 
And it shall call your husband to account. 

Caiiikrine. 
Oh; no, no, no, oh, no; these savage ways 
Cannot bring back his love. 

Henchman. 

Yes, you are right : 
The sword is rusty and the pity's great. 
There is one only other weapon known— 

Catherine. 
Alas! dear sir, I wish no weapon used. 

Henchman. 
I mean the dart of love, and you yourself 
Must be the archer. To all his jeers, scoffs, 
And acts unhusbandlike, return you naught 
But love; which will melt down his icy hate. 

Catherine. 
That will I do, and Heaven grant it be 
Sufficient to the end. 



66 IMBROGLIO. 

Henchman. 

I say, Amen. 
{Exit Catherine.) 
When I am rich I'll be the age's beau 
And teach these moneyheads the way to woo. 
Thus does the devil make good use of saints; 
For all the homely love she can pour on him 
Is so much fuel to his burning hate. 
Still am I slow to take the devil's part, 
And were I differently situated 
I would not do it. But here the wronged one 

comes. 
And with Charlotte. I must await near by 
And catch his ear before his son comes on him. 

i^Exit Henchman.) 
Enter Malone a;id Charlotte. 

Malone. 
O, guard it, (Charlotte, as you would your life. 
And as your hope of Heaven cherish it! 

Charlotte. 
Dear f^ither, no thought to virtue foreign 
Has ever tried the portal of my mind. 

Malone. 
It is a diamond of the rarest hue 
Set in the forehead of a woman's life; 
Alone by which her f;\iry form is seen. 
Which lights her eye, and beautifies her face, 
And taken away does leave her but a mass 
Black and misshapen. 



IMBROGLIO. 57 

Charlottk. 

lUit why, dear father, 
Do you speak in this strange way ? 

Ma LONE. 

() Charlotte, 
What havoc can a woman make when she goes 
wrong ! 

CliARLOTTE. 

You have some mighty secret on your mind. 

Malonk. 
Of your companions, too, be very choice. 
Contamination breeds by vile companionship, 
And chiefly this in women. 1 pray you 
On these women mark your rejjrobation; 
Such as arc basely ignorant avoid; 
I'or knowledge is the forward foot in right, 
■ And ignorance the foremost step in vice. 
Such as are frivolous and fast turn from, — 
Shun both, and seek the rich companionship 
Of those few women, rarest in esteem. 
Who, being not stupid, are yet learned, 
And being not fast, are yet vivacious. 

CHARLOnJC. 

These good instructi(;ns would be teachers twice 
If you will tell me why you give me them. 
Malonio. 

Go tell your brother Harold I would see him. 

{Exit Charlotte.) 
^w/^r Henchman imobserved by Malone. 



58 /MliKOii/.IO. 

Hl'lNl'IlM AN {(tsi(/(-). 

WluMi plaliliulcs ;iro nol ihc foods 

Of liypocritos, they die of fits. 

rU make my sorvi(\^ bii;. {SudJc'/iIy.^ Malonc, 

Malono! 
Arc you aware that Harold overheartl 
Voii si)eaking to your wife before you left? 

Mai,(in1';. 
What! No? is it possible? I rare nt)t, 
Heini:, aiuj^ly justified in what 1 said. 

lll'.NC IIMAN. 

Why, man — hist! why man you little know 
How close yoti stand upon a lit^hted mine. 
This premature affair has chanL:;ed the soul 
Of Harold to a boiliuLi, sprin;;, that now 
Vents forth itself in maladictions fierce, 
As it wouUl burst its hold, and then anon 
Sinks dmvn, with piteous moan, intt) his earth 
As it woulil cease to be. 

Maioni:. 

Poor b(\v, poor lH)y ! — 
Do you know how great 1 love my children? 
Let no consideration rob me o'i them. 
They must be made accpiaintcd, by some means 
Sure to convince them, oi this woman's i;uilt. 
1 pity them as they should pity me. 
What is llaroUl doinj.;? what has he done? 

Ul'.NCllMAN. 

1 think he has \\o\ slept since //)<// occurred. 



IMliKOCIJO. 50 

And all last nighl he wandered llirough the jKirk, 
Sighing with the trees, and lifting u[) his soul 
In supplir.'ition to the I )i('ty 
I'or guidance. 

M Ai.oNi-;. 
'I'hat, you say, he did last night? 

i il';N( IIMAN. 

As more than once ! saw him fnjin my window. 

M AI.ONM. 

i'oor lK;y! Y(ju s;i.y you saw him when I left? 

Hjonchman. 
And never looked a being hall s(j piteous. 

M ALONIO. 

I low looked he, doct(jr ? 1 )id he seem frightened ? 
Was he startled or angry? How was his face? 

I ll'lNCIIMAN. 

It bore the image (jf profcnmdest grief. 
Under his brow, knit and triangular. 
His eyes shown set and lustered like a corpse, 
With all his face high ridged and furrowed deep. 

JVIai/>nJ':. 
You saw him so? 

1 Il'lNCIIMAN. 

And yet about his mouth 
There was a firmness, felling me he ( ould do deeds 
Which, at the trying, ordinary mortals fail. 

Mai.onk. 
That is very strange, for from his childliofKl 



Il.uolil \v;is wont lo bo all ucntlcnoss. 

'roiuhiui; liis ways what olso liavc you observed? 

1 ll'NlllM AN. 

His constant od'ort to resolve your act. 

Questions lie everv one bis mother, Inuirne, 

The siMxanls, imlireetlv. nie jHtintedly — 

And I have guarded well your mystery. 

Then goes he into tlieory — this must be, 

And then it must be that, then goes again 

'I'he whole course, like an inii^isoned bird, 

Mying tVom light lo light, and still walled in. 

Hut look vou. here \\c lomes, and with yvuu' wile. 

No, foolish man, to go now in their ("ace 

Would bo conclusive evidence ol" guilt. 

M.M.ONK. 

1 have nu>re cause than willingness to stay. 

1 IVNCHM AN. 

Th.U tune is right; maintain it to the end. 

{Exit Henchman.) 

Mai.onk. 

How sickly arc our wits when we are wrong. 

(/A- /urns asiJc so that Harold and his mother 
cfttir apparently unol>served by him.) 

/>/rvllAKoi n «;/;./ rArinuiNr. 

Now, Harold, only by the gentlest means. 
No harshness either in vour wavs or words. 



IMIiKOCI.IO, 
I I AKOI.M. 



1)1 



N:iy, mollicr, li.ivc no Icir, I will do rij'lit. 

I Ic" st'cMHS .'ihsorlxd, yet I will spciik. I'.illicr! 

Ma I, ONI',. 
All, Il.iioid ! very }j,o()(l it sccins to luc 
To Ikivc yon home ;i}j,.iin. 

I I AN OLD. 

And to nx', sir, 
As yon well know, Iioinc is lli.it s.'i< red i^pot 
Where Ileiiven's ii^ht illunnn;ites the v.\\x\\\. 
1 fear you are not well ? 

M Ai.oNi:. 

Ind.<'.l, ll.uold, 
I hilely h.ive heen vc-xrd ;nid nni< h disliv:,s<-d 
Hy mingled rarcs, whi( h soincwh.it hcii me down, 
or (hem no more, hcin;-, life's in( idcnis, 
Yonr ( omin-; is the < nic ol ;ill my woes. 
r,iit h.id i not Ihonj-Jil hcst to s;i< rilicc 
'I'he |)rescnt plcjsinc lo lli<- Inture good, 
Your absence lor so lonj-, h.id heen unhc.niihle. 

I I AKOI.I). 

'I'his is the summit of our ethics, sir, 
As ofttinies in our family state a|)j)ears, 
When i)arents for tlu: future of their younj', 
Forego the greener |)leasur(.-s of the hour. 

Mai.oni-;. 

A ha|)j)y illustration of my life. 
As efforts for your education sliow. 



62 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 
For all your kindness and solicitude, 
Your sacrifices for your children's sake, 
We thank you, father, trusting our efforts 
At the schools have been some compensation 
For the untiring zeal, forbearance kind, ' 
And noble generosity of one 
Who so desires his family's welfare. 
Loving his children with such gentleness. 

Malone. 
Yes, Harold, dearly I love my children, 
On whose returning love my life depends. 
Oh, filial love does to parental love give life, 
And dying leaves the universe a void ! 
Alas ! I am grown dotard in this cause. 

Harold. 
Forgive me, father, if the early bloom 
Of my young judgment be too forward grown. 
But I with larger eyes have come to view 
This universe of love, wherein I see 
By five ascending plains its fair abode. 
The first is blazoned love of self; the next 
Is mottoed, love of man and wife; the third 
In golden letters, /lere is family love: 
Fourth plain and by the sovereign sculptor carved. 
Shines like a throne, the love of man for man; 
And on the last, in splendid characters. 
Here all loves equal meet, but none denied. 

Malone. 
Yet mark you, Harold, how the mighty base 
Of all our loves is love of self. 



IMBROGLIO. 03 

Harold. 

Oh. rather, 
Mark you, father, how in each evolving plain 
The love of self by loving others is enriched, 
And by denying self, self is itself more loved. 

Malone. 
Yet all upon the love of self depend. 

Harold. 
No; each on its precedent one depends, 
The family, like a pendent world, 
Hangs on the happy love of man and wife. 

Malone. 
The love of self is as the mighty sun; 
All other loves are bat his satellites. 

Harold. 
You see this mighty archway of our state. 
This splendid firmament of freedom's stars. 
This rich society of happy men; 
As rests the ponderous mountain on the crust 
Of earth, so does our commonwealth repose 
Upon the bosom of the family. 

Malone. 
Yet rests the family on the love of self. 

Harold. 
Father, you push the love of self too far. 
The vast trihedron of connubial love 
Is by a triad of affections formed: 
That of the husband and the wife for each, 



64 IMliKOGJJO. 

'I'hat of the iKircnt ami tho cliiKl for oarli. 
That ot" the clukhcn tor one another; 
Where these in one harmonious whole exist 
They shape the beauteous figure ot" our tainily state. 
But eitlier side renuived, tliere then retrains 
Naught but an empty and misshajien thing. 

lSl.\i.c>Ni;. 

It has i;reatly pleased me, Harold, thus to test 

The depth and compass of your studies ethical. 

And, thougli your reasons somewhat bookish sound, 

And suKuk o{ inexi>erienee in lite, 

They show a mind and heart prone to the right. 

True, Harold, the family only is 

When all its luuts in u!utv aeeord. 

Uaroi i>. 
This is the very essence t)f our life, 
'I'he key-note to existence, and the thing 
Vox which we live. Here in this charmed abode, — 
This little sovereignty where each is sovereign, — 
Here burns the lamp that lights the spacious world 
Making the dreary earth a tairy land; 
Here nations are conceived, emjMres are born, 
And all the dear relationships of life 
Bloom like that garden of which poets sing. 
Yet mark you, father, this most holy realm 
Has laws, whiih violated taints its blood. 
As tleath converts the iKMt'ume oi the rose 
Into the fetor of decomj)osition. 
The luisl)and m- the wife once gone astray 



IMIih'OGLiO. fl5 

The viiUurc ruin jjreys uj;on the family. 
'I'hus do Fome children with one parent side, 
Some with the other - so divide themselves. 
And thus the husband hates the wife, the wife 
The husband, the husband the following 
Of the wife, and the wife the following 
Of the husband, the children the parents 
Whom they follow not, and they cacb other 
Who go not together; and so the heavens 
A hell become, and pandemonium reigns. 

Malonic. 
Pleased am I, Harold, thus to see how you 
Have learned the ethics of the family, 

IIakoi.o. 

Why how sweet it is, how like to Heaven, 
How (iod-ai)pointed this relationship! 
Behold it in the stages of its life: 
At first a man and woman, young in years, 
Upon the very threshold of existence, 
Neither with worldly goods, experience, nor aught 
Save love and willingness, so join their lives; 
'i'hen in their being comes the second period, 
When their united strength wages fierce combat 
Against the world's poverty and hardship; 
During whicli time, most like, and, as it were, 
Springing from their beings, baptized by their 
United love, to the world they give new lives. 
Third stage arrives when tliey have struck the 

middle 
Of their lives, and ff;rtune's sl<jw <:re''piii:' ff>rm 



lias overtaken them. Smioinulod now 
With all the luxuries of wealth, loving 
l''aeh other, hv their ehiUiren iiloli/ed — 

C'aihkrink. 
I low sweet the pieture to niv longing eyes! 

1 1aroi.i\ 
Then comes the last, when ehiUlren's ehiUlren 
Carry them to their very marriage, 
Making them li\e their past lives o'er again. 
Stripped oi all hartlships and privations. 

M.\roNi'. 
.•\ life of sueli rare, W(.)ntirous happiness 
Makes immortality hegin on earth. 

Uauoi.p. 
Ves, so it does, luit here I have o'erreaehed 
\"our patietue, and as a youthful playwrigiu 
Does morali/e his play away, so 1 
With too much ethics have damped the pleasure 
Of our meeting. Have you seen Rieh.ird, sir? 

Mai.onk. 
No, Harold, nor yet seen Helen either. 

Haroi.i>. 
How selfish in me! let me go and fetch them. 

i^Exit H.VKOi.n. J/f nt ofur frturns afiJ 
secfr/cs /ii/NS('// behifid a screetiy but in 
view of the audiffhr.^ 

C A r n K R 1 N K {^tintidly') . 
Husband. 1 have much reuretted — 



IMnROGLIO. e? 

M ALONIC. 

Indeed! 
Oil, wondrous niitid tli;it c.'Ui at least regret! 
Wat( Ii your ( onsciencc and reuKjrsc may follow. 

('aimikkine. 
ICdinuiid, my consc ience has no stain upon it. 

M AI-ONIC. 

I'vternal Justice, listen I What, no stain? 

Mow have you washed it in these two days past? 

(!a riii';RiNi';. 

liy sean hing it for any s|)ot of wrong 
'I'oward y(ju, husband. 

M Ar.ONK. 

Oil, sj)e(:ious pretext! 
(lO fling it in the sea and let tlie waves 
Atteni|)t its cleansing. 

( 'All IKK INK. 

Alas! I would that I 
Were there, but for my children and God's laws. 
What crime has my poor soul been guilty of? 
Is it my love for you ? If that be so 
I will <urb in the outward show of it, 
And with it unexpressed be satisfied. 
Is it tin* |)lainness of my face? I will 
With all the woman's art enliven it. 

Makonk. 
O woman, for the love of mercy, peace 1 



68 /MliK'OGLlO. 

Catherine. 
Nay, husband, of my ofl'cnso inform me. 
Is it my education's i)ovei"ty, 
My lack of words, of grace and nimble ways? 
I will be mastered, booked, and learn to trip 
And talk and amble with a lady's mien. 

Ma LONE. 

Court you hatred ? Co to your priest and loarn 

To there unlearn the vileness you have taught 

yourself. 

CathekinI': (;»'//// t'fnp/iasis). 

Edmund, for Heaven's love, renounce those words. 

Malone. 

Co find a place, if there be such on earth. 

Where goodness counts not, and there hide your 

face. 

Caihkkine. 

Sweet Heaven, give me patience, give me jxitience. 

There is an end, an end, an end, O l'\uher ! 

{Exit Caihkkine.) 

( 1 1 a K I M , n i\ >;/!(-s U ^nvard. ") 

Maione. 

Harold! 

Makoi n. 

Peace Id your soul's alarm ! 
For this unmannered watch, I jiardon beg; 
My love must furnish forth its good excuse. 

1 have not stayed to (piarrel with you, sir. 



JMHKOCI.IO. 69 

iMai.oni;. 

Harold, 1 am weary of this life, 

Which slowly draj^s its IVciL^htcd weight along 
Over the dreary world to immortality. 

IIaroli). 
Now, father, what great gulf is this between you 
And my mother ? 

Mai.onk. 
Ihe words would burn my tongue, 
That named ihem to you, Harold. 

Harold. 

And must 1, 
Who am the very growth, the primal limb. 
Of this most sacred trunk, be (juitc cut off. 
Denied all intercourse, an 1 left to die.-* 

Mai.onk. 

1 cannot sj^eak; my heart an 1 yours would break. 
There is no justice in tliis world for me. 

Hai<^)IJ). 
No justice?— here on my knees —witness God! — 
Here 1 proclaim myself — if you are wronged 
An i she prove ob lurate — forevjr hence 
Upon your side demanding ecjuity. 
Make m • to see the stain of which you spoke, 
And here I swear into the raging sea 
To fling my love, and live for only you. 

Maf.onk. 
Have patience, son, crime will reveal itself. 



70 IMBKOGLIO. 

Harold. 
By our common love I implore you. 

M ALONE. 

Harold. 
By our common taith I entreat you. 
Malonk. 

Harold. 



No. 



No. 



By the right of a .son I demand it; 
For the love of your wife deny me not; 
For your children's s;ike, if you love them. 

Malone. 

No. 

Harold. 

For the sake of mankind — 

Malone. 

No, Harold, no. 
Harold {^risin^). 
Then you love us none, but in the iron cloak 
Of self ensheathe vour ad.imantine soul, 
Loving not God, nor mm, nor wife, nor child, 
Nor anything e.xcept your stolid self. 

Malone. 
O H.irold, you have hereby pierced my heart, 
And I liave lived too long when tlius my child 
Demands a warrant tor his lather's death! 



/M/iA'Oa/./O. 71 

Alas, for life when life is so awry! 

{lie sinks into a r/uiir, an'erini^ his face iciih 
his hands, <ind prelends to wcc/k) 
Hakoi-d (aside). 
Cruelty is herein merciful; and, 
'I'houj^h it break my own, I will unseal his heart. — 
Sir, in my conduct's eye throu;^MTout my life 
I have h'.'iield you on that majestic throne, 
That splendid station that a father fills. 

Mai.oni'-,. 
One mij^ht well doubt I were your father 
To hear you so ui)braid me. 

IIarof.I). 

Indeed, sir, 
One mit^ht well doubt you wcrt; my father 
To hear you so U|>braid my mother; 
For, if you were my father, surely you 
Would more the husband of my mother be. 

Mai.onk. 
God grant that blow tiiay ne'er return (m you. 

1 Iakoi.o. 
You cannot thwart me by this subtle mien. 
The star of husband-fatherhood that burned 
In the zenith of my love has fallen. 
I have seen my t^racicnis mother Ix-g you, 
I have on my lowly knees imj)lored you, 
I'or that the docked criminal of right may have 
And justice to her meanest felon ne'er denies. 



72 IMPKOGIJO. 

Wliat pitiful olTcnse is this tliat lives on sighs, 
And cl;iros not breathe in words! E'en were she 

wrong, 
And triple-plated justice on your side, 
A prosecution by such cruel means 
Would to a persecution change, the crime 
In the complainant growing greatest. 

Malonk. 
Is it for this that I have all my life 
In the hot caverns of the earth delvetl down, 
On frozen summits worked, in deserts lived, 
Foregone all pleasures, for my children's sake, 
And chietly you ? O you fathers, hear me 
'I'o the wt)rld's remotest ends, never more 
I"'or your children labor, never more love them! 

Harold. 
'I'here is tlie curse, the very curse of it. 
That any father should so love his son 
And with such rancor hate the mother of that son! 
Sure you are sane, which doubted I at first. 
For on all other themes you reason right, 
And monomania upon its fancied wrongs 
Would harp, where you keep closely j^risoned mind; 
And surely you have no just cause for blame 
Against your wite, or you would make that known- 
But mark you how betwixt the real ground 
And f;\ncied cause, stands up the crooked form. 
Sighing, yet tongueless, of hypocritic pretense! 
What! is the glass so jierfect that you see 



iMIiROGLIO. 19 

The ghost of your own skeleton ? Why, sir, 
The air is reeky with the newH — it stinks 
In the nose of every beldam gossij) 
On the Coast, that shortly you shall put away 
Your wife and take a fresher one! 

Malonk. 

O God I 
Harold. 

O God, say I!— what! are you blind? See there 
Where on her knees, the crucifix in hand — 
Dare you not look? — my mother does implore 
Divinity to save her from this outrage. 

Mai,()NK. 
Well, have you done ? 

Harold. 

Your calmness comes too late. 
The V rdict, not the prison, makes the guilty (juake. 
Alas! .vl-.at monstrous crime is this, that from 
The due obedience of a loving son 
Converts me to a gross accuser of my sire ? 

Malone. 
Deeper remorse than this may seize you yet. 

Harold. 
To barter off my mother and your wife 
For such a twittering, painted, pasty, 
Hair-be-frizzled dot as underneath the name 
Of beauty sails in the air of our society! 

Malonk. 
O Harold, you are deaf to your own words! 



74 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 
To fling your fair name into the foul stench 
Of the public slaughter-house! — 

Malone. 

No more of this. 
Harold. 

To drag your children through the filthy slums 
That a proceeding such as this must make! 
And all for what ? To bask for a brief day 
In the bought smiles of a purchased bride, 
Reek in the mulching of a fickle bed, 
Gape when she ambles in another's arms, 
And have the staring multitude cry, Lo^ 
How beautiful a wife he has! 

Malone. 

Harold! 

Harold. 
Beauty — the saying rusts — is but skin deep. 
Note you the proof: Here is the slab; here lies 
The form and f^ice of Venus; this is the knife 
And mine the hungry student's hand. An hour — 
Not half so long — the skin of beauty's stripped! 
See those eyes, which once like sparkling diamonds 
Had lit up the night, now bulging out 
Like two disgusting warts — beautiful eyes! 
And that nose, that chiseled piece of marble, 
See! 'tis a pretty piece of gristle now. 
And those tinted cheeks — yes, and that dimpled 
chin — 



IMBROGLIO. 75 

Why, sir, they are naught but rapes of raw meat. 
And all those veins, which gave Aurora's color 
To the face, arc streaks of clotted gore. 
Ah, but those lips, for but one kiss from which 
You might have squandered half a fortune, 
Are taut upon the teeth drawn back into a grin 
Ghairtly as death itself! Do you now know 
In what great depths the seat of beauty lies ? 
And would you of it rather be possessed 
Than that impenetrable honor and virtue 
Which not a surgeon's knife can cut awa> 

Ma LONE. 

O Harold, you have frozen up my veins! 

Harold. 
Go warm them, father, at my mother's heart. 
Renounce this most unworthy scheme, and I 
In ashes will repent what I have said. 

Malone. 
This scheme is but the vintage of your mind. 

Harold. 
Let us not bandy words, — say it is so. 
Which Heaven grant it is. But, father, go, 
A decent pardon of my mother beg, 
And set her heart to rights; or, if that be 
More than you think your dignity becomes, 
Promise me this, that you will now put off 
This most mysterious demeanor, 
And treat your wife in all things as becomes 
The lofty station of a wife and mother. 



70 IMBROGLIO. 

Malone. 
My treatment shall accord with her deserts. 

Harold. 
Why, that's to say you will not change your ways. 

Malone. 
You know not Avhat you ask. If you were me 
You would behold her through another eye. 

Harold. 
What hellish she has caught you in her web 
That you to honor, duty, family, are dead? 
Come, look you on this scene: Here is your home — 
The honored end of more than half a life — 
A domicile to house a prince, a fort 
Enclosing love; here is your wife, and she, 
With you, the joint producer of your wealth. 
Here are your children, entails of your name! 
A future that might dazzle monarchs' eyes! 
Now look on that: There is your house, not home, 
Blazed with the gaudy trappings of the hour; 
Your mistress there, pampered and puffed like sin, 
Decked in the gross embellishments of new reaped 

wealth, 
The magpie gossip of society. 
Childless you must remain, or children have 
That bear the mark of doubtful i)arentage, 
For we discarded oftspring will with mother go. 
Now what is this to that ? Home to brothel, 
Wife to bawd, love to lust, reality 
To myth, and decency to vanity. 



IMBROGLIO. 77 

In Heaven's name what betterment can hope sug- 
gest 
To make you plunge from tliis fair i)aradise 
To that foul hell ? 

Maixjnk. 

You [)rattle idly. 

Harold. 
Prattle! call you this jjrattle.^ Then, if you will, 
Crack uj) this little world, against the wall 
Of justice fling yourself I in the breach 
Will guard my mother's rights; but press me not 
Too far, or else these hands — 

Mai.onic. 

Harold, my son ! 

Harold. 
Yes, these very hands may not remember 
That you are the father. 

Malonk. 

The day shall come — 

Harold. 
When my dear mother's rights are sacredly ob 
served. 

Mai-onk. 
When you shall beg upon your bended knees — 

Harolfj. 
Yes, and implore your wronged wife's mercy. 

Malonk. 
For this unkindness my forgiveness, son. 



78 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 
Forgiveness ! and adds hypocrisy to crime ! 

{Exit Harold.) 
E?iter Henchman. 

Well done, Malone, marvelously well done. 
From yonder room I have observed it all. 
You waste your genius; turn actor and play 
The part of Tartuffe. 

Malone. 

You will oblige me 
By maintaining toward me in my grief 
A changed and more respectful demeanor. 

Henchman. 
Good, by Jupiter, excellently well 1 
{Aside) A monkey playing a Jew's-harp. 
Malone. 

Henchman ! 
Henchman. 
Ay, sir — as one should say in tragedy. 

Malone. 
Have you no heart ? 

Henchman. 
One somewhat stuffed with brains. 
Malone. 



No feelins ? 



Shall I quiver.? 



Henchman. 

Oh ! 1 am all emotion 



IMBROGLIO. 79 

Malone. 

No more of this, I say. 
Henchman. 
Why, hicss my life, Malone, are you in earnest ? 

Malone. 
Is it the proper thing to sport with one 
Whose wife has played him false } 

Henchman. 

Why, now, that's so. 
Ah, thoughtless me ! forgive me, dear Malone. 

Malone. 
Alas ! I fear my son has gone from me. 

Henchman. 
Fear not, these things are providential. 

Malone. 
I cannot see them so. 

Henchman. 

This way, mark you; 
The human mind is like a metal spring. 
The harder it is struck, being not snapped. 
The greater will the rebound be. So 'tis 
With Harold, whose elastic mind 
Has by the ponderous and depressing blow 
Of your apparent villainy been struck. 
Now, when he sees you are the injured one. 
The weight being removed, he will fly back to you 
With all his nature's fierce impetuosity. 



80 IMBROCUO, 

M ALONE. 

Your jerky style imports a labored reason. 
I pray it may be so, yet greatly fear. 

{Exit M ALONE.) 

Henchman. 
He prays it may be so ! he prays 1 he prays ! 

{As tJwiigh praying to the devil.) 
O sweety devil, holy devil, 
Most pure devil, hear my supplication ! 
I'll turn a praying, too, if this continue long, 
It is such mirth to mock the hypocrite. 
Enter Catherine. 

Catherine. 

O sir, my troubles are grown mountain high. 

Harold has but increased his father's wrath, 

Who, by insinuations deep, attempts 

To turn my children from me. 

Henchman. 

Dear lady, 

What nature has these vile insinuations ? 

Catherine. 
Alas ! they take no form. 

Henchman. 

They therefore are 
More dangerous. An open charge is like 
A lion; it may at least be fought. 
But innuendoes are those subtle gerrr»s, 
Unseen, ungraspable, yet deadly, which slyly 
Creep into the body of a reputation. 



IMBROGLIO. 81 

Which ere we know it dies. O dear lady, 
These innuendoes are very poison 
To your children's love — we must unearth their 
cause. 

Catherine. 
Ah me \ where shall I go for other help ? 
Since you and Harold fail, I have lost heart. 

Henchman. 
In all my feeble efforts in your dear behalf 
There has appeared before my watchful eyes 
The name of Maurice Uourne. Sure^ I have said, 
These men having for more than half a life 
Been close co?n_panions, if your husband gave 
His coftfidence to a?ty one^ that one is Bourne. 

Catherine. 
I, too, have thought of Maurice, and ofttimes 
Have pricked my courage on to tell him. 
But, oh, the shame of it ! — to have him know 
There is between myself and Edmund trouble; 
Besides it ill becomes my wifely modesty. 

Henchman. 
Modesty, and all her lovely sisterhood, 
Good madam, live in the mind, intention 
Being their very gist, substance and all. 
And when the heart is pure, the showy forms 
And outward manners of its tenement 
Are quite indifferent; but when the mind 
Is soiled by evil thoughts, no etiquette 
Can purify the act ; and what without 

6 



82 IMBROGLIO. 

A cause is gross indecency, becomes, 
When with a reason coupled, sweetest modesty; 
Therefore with a pure heart go to your friend, 
And lay your cause before him from the first. 

Catherine. 

Knowing I mean but good I will see Maurice. 

Henchman. 

Kind Heaven grant your cause prosperity. 
Where will you see him, madam ? 

Catherine. 

In this room, 
The parlor, sitting room, or any place. 

Henchman. 
What if your husband should o'erhear you? 

Catherine. 
I know not how it might affect him. 

Henchman. 

There it is, madam ; our worthiest acts 
Have this complexion; that howsoever good 
They be we should so do them as to bring no ill. 
We must be very prudent in our cause. 
For if your husband knew of your intent 
To query out the meaning of his acts 
It might increase his wrath. Therefore, meet Bourne 
At some place where your husband may not see 
you. 



IMBROGLIO. 83 

Catherine. 
By your wise counsel will I be advised. 
What place would you suggest? 

Henchman. 

Now let me see. — 
There is a place about the center of the park, 
Close to the flower house, where a live oak 
Uplifts its canopy to shade the light. 
There ofttimes I have whiled the night away 
In solitary thoughts on immortality. 
It is a holy spot where anciently 
Old Father Serra blessed the Indians. 
There, madam, is the place to meet your friend. 

Catherine. 
I will do so. 

Henchman. 
'Twere better done at once. 
I will invite your friend. At eight o'clock? 

Catherine. 
As you advise. Kind Heaven grant the end 
May justify the means. 

Henchman. 

Madam, amen. 

{^Exit Catherine.) 
The devil is master of ceremonies. 
Enter Glasco. 
Now who's his dignity? That is the remnant 
of a phiz that I have somewhere seen. 



84 IMBROGLIO, 

Glasco. 
This is the fellow of whom Malone spoke. 'J 
must impress him. ( With dik:;nily.') Good evening, 
sir. 

Henchman {tjuitating Glasco). 
Good evening, sir. 

Glasco. 
A pleasant evening, sir. 

Henchman. 
A pleasant evening, sir. 

Glasco. 
I presume this is Doctor Henchman. 

Henchman. 
I presume this is Doctor Henchman. 

Glasco. 
I hope you are well, sir. 

Henchman. 
I hope you are well, sir. 

Glasco. 
I perceive you are from the South, sir. 

Henchman. 
I perceive you are from the South, sir. 

Glasco. 
Have you been out here long? 
Henchman. 
'49er. Have you been out here long? 



IMBROGLIO. 86 

Glasco. 
I came in '50. 

Henchman. 
Where did you stop? 

Glasco. 
At — cr — at Old Calamity Hill. Where did you 
stop? 

Henchman. 

At — er — at Old Calamity Hill. Sir, your face 
has a distantly familiar contortion about it; and 
having run the parrot gamut of greeting, may 
I have the honor to know your name? 

Glasco. 
My name is Glasco, William Glasco, attorney-at- 
law, of San Francisco. 

Henchman. 
Glasco? Glasco? 

Glasco. 
Glasco, sir. 

Henchman 
And you came here in '49? 

Glasco. 
In '50, sir. 

Henchman. 
What was your name then ? 

Glasco. 
Sir? 



86 IMBROGLIO. 

Henchman. 
Beg pardon, but a name is such a help to mem- 
ory. Glasco? Glasco? — Coglass! 

Glasco. 
Sir? 

Henchman. 
What ! Bill Coglass who ran a faro game in Jim 
McCrackin's saloon ? 

Glasco. 
Sir, I understand — 

Henchman. 
But I don't, how you are now Judge Glasco, the 
famous lawyer of San Francisco. 
Glasco. 
Sir, I understand that you are a witness in a 
certain case, that Mr. Malone is shortly to bring 
against his — er — er — against his — er. 

Henchman. 
Er — er — mother-in-law. 

Glasco. 
I have heard Malone speak very highly of you. 
Henchman. 
As he might speak of his dog! Thus, he scents 
well; is an excellent retriever; will follow or 
go before as you like ; will not bark when he 
should keep still, — a most excellent cur, that 
will do for his food what his master will have 
him do! 



IMBROGLIO, 87 

Glasco. 
I have not heard him speak of you in this regard. 
Henchman. 

Oh, the shame of it, Glasco, the shame of it, that 
we who have the brains must play the lackey's 
part to they who have the wealth ! Are we 
lawyers? for their retainers we corrupt our 
judgments; Judges? for their influence we 
murder justice; legislators? for their bribes we 
make the laws they ask; editors ? for their subsi- 
dies they hold our pens; preachers ? for pew rent 
we give our consciences to the devil — and all for 
what ? A night's lodging and a full belly ! 
Glasco, 

Tut, tut! I have heard him praise you as a 
most excellent and trustworthy gentleman. 
Henchman. 

I had rather he had damned me for a common 
bawd. For I have fallen down so low beneath my 
own contempt that I have nothing left— except a 
tongue to own my villainy and make a sport of 
hypocrites. 

Glasco. 

I know nothing of this. 

Henchman. 

Bah ! Your nose is so used to the stench it fails 
to notice it. Most righteous and clear-conscienced, 



»» IMBROGLIO, 

my very dear sir Lawyer, what would you with me ? 
Drop slabbering and come to terms. 

Glasco. 

I understand you are working up this case? 

Henchman. 

Well, yes; I am looking after Malone's matrimo- 
nial interests. 

Glasco. 

Now, I understand that his wife and one Bourne 
have been guilty of — 

Henchman. 

Lord, yes ; you can see them any day in each 
other's arms — on the street, in the theater, in 
church. Oh ! believe me, they're a vile lot. 

Glasco. 

Well, sir, I will tell you what evidence I want 
and you will get it. 

Henchman. 

1 will ? Would you prefer that I should make 
or buy it ? 

Glasco. 

No, sir ; you shall find it. 

Henchman. 

Tweedle dum and tweedle dee. Well, what evi- 
dence shall I find for your purity ? 



IMBROGLIO, 8» 

Glasco. 
Circumstantial evidence of matrimonial inconti- 
nency. 

Henchman. 

B-a-n-g ; and yet there is a short way of calling 
that bang ! I have run ahead of you and an- 
nounced you to my lady. What you mean is that 
you want me to find witnesses who will swear — 

Glasco. 

Pardon me, sir; a lawyer never cares to go too 
minutely into such things. All I ask is evidence 
showing that these parties had a previous liking for 
each other, clandestine correspondence, stolen in- 
terviews, passionate declarations, and the oppor- 
tunity for the consummiition of the offense. 
Hknchman. 

You have no doubt of the veritable existence of 
such evidence ? 

Glasco. 

Sir, the lawyer tries his case on the evidence 
submitted to him; the truthfulness of the evidence 
is a matter for the witness. 
Enter M alone. 

Malone. 
Gentlemen, this is a very sad occasion. 

Glasco. 
A very sad one, indeed, sir. 



90 IMBROGLIO, 

Henchman. 
A very sad one, indeed, sir. 

Glasco. 
May I speak with you in private, Malone? 

{^Exit Malone and Glasco.) 

Henchman. 
By Heavens, I am the only villain ! 
Enrobe a crime in lawyers' gowns and it 
Becomes a virtue ; dress lawyers' virtue 
In laymen's rags and it becomes a crime. 
O virtuous, sweet, clear-conscienced villain, 
O law-protected villain, fare thee well ! 
So are we all villains in our way. 

{Exit Henchman.) 



IMBROGLIO. ^1 



ACT III. 

SCENE.— Malone's mmtry place; a park 7vith a 
flower house; night. 

Enter Henchman and Glasco. 
Henchman. 

I am no lawyer such as you are, sir, 

Versed in the labyrinths of legal lore, 

But with a wider compass of my eye 

Review this mater of divorce. I see 

A man and woman married, but I see 

Him grown to hate, despise and loathe his wife. 

She, we will say, is virtuous and good — 

Gives him no legal cause for a divorce. 

Glasco. 

Of this I know, and care to know, nothing. 

Henchman. 

Well, well; you prattle with a lawyer's tongue. 
The vinculum of marriage here is broke, 
Yet the law affords the husband no relief. 

Glasco. 
The lawyer will, if you do well your part. 



92 IMBROGLIO. 

Henchman. 
Yes, but that slimes the majesty of law. 
And yet, Glasco, the fault lies in the law, 
Which ofttimes turns the hangman of itself, 
When to a climax of ideal life 
It tries to force our human natures. 

Glasco {aside). 

Tiresome fool ! — But, sir, with the policy 
Of laws the advocate has naught to do. 
To evade the bad laws and to enforce 
Such as are good is the lawyer's business. 

Henchman {Jialf abstractedly). 

Something is rotten in the policy 

Of laws which force us mortals through a course 

Of villainy to reach our native rights (^pauses). 

Glasco (aside). 

The old fish is hooked, but must play it out 
Ere I can land him. 

Henchman. 

These serving laws, — 
Vain hour-long flatterers! — tickle the consciences 
That they seduce, then serve to bribe our courts, 
Corrui)t our juries, perjure our witnesses, 
Convert our lawyers into tricksters vile, 
And turn the native current of our acts 
Out from the channel of its probity. 
There's something rotten in our statute of divorce. 



IMBROGLIO, 93 

Glasco {impatiently). 
But to this case. 

Henchman {suddenly). 

But to this case, indeed; 
And the problem is, to win or not to win. 
I would compare a lawyer's duty thus: 
Positive win, comparative wind, 
Superlative wind. 

Glasco {aside). 

Ha! a razor tongue. 
Henchman. 
I would I knew the tricks of your trade, for I 
suppose there is scarce one chance in a dozen for 
a shrewd lawyer to lose a case, however bad it be. 
Glasco {aside). 
He floats where I would have him.— Well, doc- 
tor, as to that, there are, betwixt the beginning and 
the ending of a bad law suit, many steps, appeals, 
and chances not mentioned in the codes. 
Henchman. 

Indeed ! 

Glasco. 

And as we are about to undertake a case of vast 

importance — 

Henchman. 

Wherein there must be tricks or no tricks. 

Glasco. 

You may as well be made acquainted with these — 



94 IMBROGLIO, 

Henchman. 

Eccentricities of your profession. 

Glasco. 

Still, you must know that I have learned these 
things by observation, not experience. 

Henchman. 

Ah! it flies without wings. It is too bad that 
such a dear young innocent as you are should be 
set down unprotected in this immoral world, and 
how odd it is that 'mongst the dirty clothes of 
your trade you have kept your own linen so un- 
spotted ! But pardon me, let the magician begin 
his tricks — from faro to law is but a step. 

Glasco {aside). 

I must bear with him. — First, at the doorway of 
your suit lies your pocket appeal to the virtuous 
judge to quash the case. Your second step is a 
money application to the witnesses against you. 
Third chance is to manufacture witnesses out of 
coin. Fourth resort is a pocket appeal to the virt- 
uous sheriff to procure a jury of your inclining. 
Fifth step is at the door of honest jurymen. Sixth 
effort is a lucre application to the conscientious 
judge to undo what has gone before. Last 
effort, and by its nature topping all, is your appeal 
to the Court Supreme, where, I have heard, the 
sack is at times a great argument. 



IMBROGLIO. 95 

Henchman. 

In the lovely name of Justice, do you lawyers do 
such things ? 

Glasco. 

A villainous, beastly presumption ! 

Henchman. 

Then, since your holiness does them not, who 
does them ? 

Glasco. 

Your client; or, if he be troubled with a tender 
conscience, he get some — particular— friend — to do 
them. 

Henchman. 

And therein lies the point; when the lawyer 
winks, the client buys; when the client squirms, the 
Henchman's turn arrives. 

^^z/^r Catherine at a distance diffidently. 

Hist ! the devil is abroad to-night — get behind 
that tree or he will catch you. 

Glasco. 
Here, indeed, is the beginning of a case. 
Henchman. 
Out of which a pettifogger, or great lawyer, 
might make something. 

Glasco. 
What does she here .? 



96 IMBROGLIO. 

Henchman. 
The devil knows, but may take his imp into confi- 
dence. 

Catherine. 
How dark it seems, — this is the place he named. 

Glasco. 
Remember that. 

Henchman. 
That's food for juror's brains. 
Catherine. 
Why does he not come ? 

Glasco. 

Mark that ! set it down. 
Enter Bourne at a distance. 
The paramour ! — a circumstance, indeed. 

Henchman. 
Yonder is more fortune — Harold, ghost-like. 
Stalking among the trees; quick, get away, 
And I will bring him within range of them. 

Glasco. 
Proof to convict a saint; be cautious, sir. 

{Exeunt Henchman and Glasco.) 
Catherine {seeing Bourne). 
Maurice, my old friend ! 

Bourne. 

Nay, but what is this ? 
What mean these broken words ? 



IMBROGLIO. 97 

Catherine. 

A broken heart. 
Bourne. 
Sure this is strange ! Why must we, who have been 
Friends for more than twenty years, now meet, 
Like outlaws, here in this clandestine way ? 

Catherine. 
Do not chide me, Maurice. 

Bourne. 

Chide you, for what? 
Catherine. 
My husband hates me ! 

Bourne. 

In Heaven's name, for what? 
Enter Harold and Henchman. (Bourne 
and Catherine continue their conversa- 
tion in a low /one.') 

Henchman. 

What think you of Kant's Critique, my young 
friend ? 

Harold. 

Some other time, if it please you, Doctor. 

Now, as to this estrangement between 

My father and my mother, have you seen — 

Henchman. 
The book is an excellent subtlety — 



98 IMBROGLIO, 

Harold. 
Please you, sir, speak of my parents' troubles. 

Henchman. 
Harold, I rather would not mention them. 
I am here in dual state, as doctor 
And as guest; either one should seal my lips. 

Harold. 
But you know, Doctor, I have been absent. 

Henchman. 
And I am sorry I have been present. 
I pray you, let us speak no more on this. 

Harold. 
But can you form no notion of the cause .^ 
Has not some word or act disclosed its source ? 

Henchman. 
Our married lives are full of small discords, 
Which night, Nature's blest court of equity 
Adjusting, tunes to sweeter harmony. 
But there are acts which soil and stain the face 
Of decency, and crimson modesty. 

Harold. 
Why, now, you make me think some such is here. 

(Henchman jtdmps quickly in f?'ontofYlkYL- 
old, and between hi?n and ivhere Cath- 
erine and Bourne are standing.') 

Henchman. 
Oh! look you yonder where the silver queen, 



IMBROGLIO, 99 

Rising above the summit of the range, 
Unveils the night and throws a million kisses 
To the sleeping world. 

Harold. 

Why, what startled you ? 
Henchman. 
Nothing, I think, unless the queenly kiss 
Awaked my amorous love of nature. 

Harold. 
Why jumped you so before me ? even now 
Your actions are as frightened as a deer's. 

Henchman. 
And see; how every leaf becomes an eye! 

Harold. 
Doctor, do you see those people yonder ? 
Is the park become a lovers' hiding-place ? 

Henchman. 
Lovers, Harold ? — lovers ! — nay, watch them not, 
They are but some strollers wandered this way. 

Harold. 
Strollers, say you ? why, that's like my mother, 
Else am I blind; is that not Maurice Bourne } 

Henchman. 
Bourne ! your mother! Look what you say, Harold! 
Think you they would be here at such an hour.? 
I think your mother's virtue is too strong. 



100 IMBROGLIO, 

Harold. 
My mother's virtue is as strong as steel. — 
I see but illy, yet it must be them. 

11|',NCI1MAN. 

No, Harold, your mother would not — could not — 
Come, come, look on no more; let us go back. 

1 I A KOI, 1). 

Nay, tug not so; I woukl see who they are. 

Hkncuman. 
See no more;— the air is chilly, sir. 
Let us go l)ack; this thing you see is naught, 
Your mother has not so lost her virtue — 
'Tis but your fancy. 

Harold. 

Let mc go. Henchman. 
See, it is they ! 

Hl'.NCllMAN. 

Go back ! go back ! go back ! 
Harold. 
Go back ! — to hell, go back ! Your go-backs" mean 
Much more than mere go-back — I will not go. 
Look, she entreats him with outstretched arms, 

hark ! 
Their voices rise, listen ! 

Catherine. 

Oh, no, Maurice ! 
Tell ine not it is another woman — 
Anything but that. 



IMBROGLIO, 101 

Henchman. 

Maybe she upbraids him 
For some other woman. 

(^Exeunt Cathkrine and Bourne.) 
Harold. 

I will kill you. 
Henchman. 
I only said, it may be, not it is. 
They have heard you and moved away. 
Harold {impetuously). 

Henchman, 
Tell me the truth of this — if you but swerve 
A hair's breadth on either side of fact, 
May you be damned! Is this a common thing? 

Henchman. 
Tut! Harold, speak not this way. She is your — 

Harold. 
Give me the truth direct — slur not a fact — 

Henchman. 

Why, why! 

Harold. 

Nor exculpate — 

Henchman. 

Am I a child 
To be frightened into telling truth? 

Harold. 

Oh, if you love justice, speak. Henchman, speak! 



102 IMBROGLIO. 

HlCNCIIMAN. 

Take you me to be tlie retail mercliant 
Of all the gossip in the neighborhood? 

Harold. 
In Heaven's name, have you seen this thing before? 

HlCNCHMAN. 

It is not for me to say, nor will I. 

Harold. 
I beg you tell me — she is my mother. 

Henchman. 
I would rather be a snake and half my life 
Live coiled up dead than be the trumpeter 
Of every bastard rumor to which 
The pregnant air gives birth. I will not say. 

Harold. 
O God, this is the lightning's flash that brings 
To sight the black night of my father's deeds, 
And in a minute blazes forth their cause ! 

HENCH^L\N. 

This may be but an aberration, sir. 

Harold. 
Keep such sophistry for unread jurors. — 
If 'twere by itself it might be innocent; 
Joined witli my father's acts it grows a crime. 

Henchman. 
It were best vou think on this theme no more. 



I 



IMBROCLiO, i03 

Harold. 
Then I shall cease to think. 

Henchman. 

If of her guilt 
Or innocence you would be quite convinced, 
Await developments. 

Harold. 

Ask me to wait 
The development of ruin, the world's end. 

Hp:nchman. 
But, Harold, it may not yet have come to — 

Harold. 
Chaos, desolation, the rot of time. 

Henchman. 
What we have seen with doubtful eyes may be 
But the appearance of unchastity. 

Harold. 
Ha! look how you speak ! she is my mother. 

Henchman. 
Now you speak right, and like a loving son. 
To basely say your mother is guilty 
When she but seems to be so, is to wrong her, 
Wrong your father, and, more, to wrong yourself. 
It is sure a crime to lay a baseless charge 
Of foul unchastity on any woman. 
How monstrous then becomes the crime when 

laid 
On your before-thought virtuous mother. 



104 IMBROGLIO, 

Harold. 
Out on this seeming ! all the smooth words 
In Italy could only gloss this foulness. 
The world is a huge graveyard, and women 
Are but walking skeletons of sin, 
That need the lightning's flash to bare their bones. — 
This must be so. O Atlantean shoulders 
That must pack this world unto my father. 

{Exit Harold.) 
Henchman. 
I like not this business — it grows too serious- 
Had I seen its end, I had not begun it. I'll have 
no more to do with it. I'll wash my hands of it. 
I'll go on the woman's side and show these devils 
up. Then I'll not get the money. — What if I get 
the money ? Yes, but what if I get in jail for 
getting it, and what if I get in hell for false swear- 
ing.? I'll not do't — it's not right— Higho, Hench- 
man ! whence this spasm of your conscience ? 

A Voice. 
Conscience ! 

Henchman. 
Ha! ha! who said conscience ? 

A Voice. 
Hell! 

Henchman. 

Ha! ha! who said hell ? 

A Voice. 
Right! 



IMBROGLIO, 106 



Ha! ha! who said right. ? 



Hknchman. 
;ht.? 

A Voice. 
Wrong! 

Henchman. 

Ha! ha! who said wrong? And yet I do not 
this business from the pure love of wrong. 

A Voice. 
Wrong! 

Henchman. 

Damn the word! Wrong? What's wrong? 
What's right ? What's hell ? What's conscience ? 
There you are, old Conscience, there you are, old 
Devil, ever bobbing up before me arguing your 
sides. By Jupiter, I'll hold a court and pass judg- 
ment on this case ! Right and Wrong shall be the 
litigants; old Conscience and the Devil, lawyers; 
Henchman, the Judge. 

{A white form suddenly appears on one side, 
and a black form on the other side of 

Henchman.)* 
Wrong, alias Henchman, %is. Right, alias Hench- 



*To justify the introduction of these "forms," I am constrained to 
violate the rule which requirfs that the drama should be self-explana- 
tory. There is a speces of hrdlucination, to which even the soundest 
m nds are at times subject, whereby tiie person sees, in a shadowy sort 
of way, forms and images, which are, of course, but the embodiment of 
his own thoughts. While under the influence of such a spell, the hold- 
ing of imaginary conversations with such forms is not uncommon. The 
scene thereby created, is, I think, a proper subject for the drama; not 
because it has any existence, in fact, but because while it exists it is a 
reality to the one who thinks he sees if, and the only way to appreciate 
a character is to translate one's self into his position and condition. 



106 IMBROGLIO, 

man's conscience. Are you ready for the plaintiff? 

Black Form. 
Please, your honor, I ask for a continuance. 
Henchman. 

There you are, old pettifogger, always asking for 
a continuance. What'U you do for a continuance 
at the day of Judgment. You'll take out your con- 
tinuance in purgatory. You can delay this case 
no longer. Ready for the defendant ? 

White Form. 
Ready, your honor. 

Henchman. 
Then at it, and damn formalities. 
White Form. 
It is not right that you should break this family up. 
Henchman. 
There you are, old Conscience, always speaking 
first. The plaintiff should begin. 

Black Form. 
This family has fallen apart of its own weight; it 
is not your honor does it. 

Henchman. 
Good point — well said — old Devil. 

White Form. 
This is a shallow subterfuge. 



IMBROGLIO. 107 

Black Form. 

At least it is Malone and not your honor breaks 
it up. 

White Form. 

Your honor is a party to the act, and violates the 
rule infallible of right. 

Henchman. 
What say you to that, Mr. Devil ? Is there a 
rule infallible of right ? 

Black Form. 
Aye, one that changes with the moon, or each 
new edict of the church, or roams about following 
the whims of legislators, or spies itself in each 
fresh custom of society, or else, barring all these, 
lives in a caldron of well boiled reptiles. 

{Lattghs sardonically.') 
White Form. 
ril not argue with such a liar. 
Henchman. 
What, old Conscience, back out in this way • 
Come, at the devil in his own style. 
White Form. 
It is not my way. Your honor has allowed youj- 
love of money to bribe your better self. 

Henchman. 
Thou liest. Conscience ! It is not my love o 
money, but my hate of poverty. 



108 IMBROGLIO. 

Black Form (aside). 
When the judge takes up the lawyer's side the 
lawyer may retire. 

White Form (faintly'). 
I pray, your honor, do not let the devil rule you. 
Henchman. 
What, old barrister, your voice is almost out of 
hearing. 

White Form {louder). 

If you do this act, I'll set a raging war agoing in 

you. 

Black Form. 

He tries to scare you. 

White Form. 
I'll pinch you in a thousand places. 

Black Form. 
He tries to scare you. 

White Form. 
I'll rack you with remorse. 

Black Form. 
He tries to scare you. 

White Form. 
I'll put you in the company of thieves. 

Black Form. 
He tries to scare you. 

Henchman. 
Order in this Court ! 



IMBROGLIO, 109 

White Form. 
I'll make you hold your head down, so you'll 
not dare to look at honest men. 
Henchman. 

Thou liest ! 

Black Form. 

He tries to scare you. 

White Form. 
I'll damn your soul in hell. 

Black Form. 
H e tries to scare you. 

Henchman. 
Out on you both ! I'll have no more of you. 
This Court's adjourned. {Fonns vanish.') The 
devil take me if I ever hold another Court like 
that ! Why this is slinking dotage. It grows late, 
and it grows late with me. Pure fear, pure fear ! — 
Whoever called me coward ? Oh, I'll do't, I'll do't ! 
— the job is more than half done now. I think I 
see me in mine ease, my cares all flown, a rich old 
man with a book of philosophy in his hand, nod- 
ding his age away. Ah, for such an ease what 
should a man not do ? 

{Exit Henchman.) 



110 IMBROGLIO. 



ACT IV. 

SCENE. — Malone's coimtry house; a room. 

Enter Harold. 
Yet does the logic of the eye outweigh 
The logic of the mind — Is't possible ? — 
Is't not impossible? Heaven and earth, 
The vulture glutton feeds not on himself! 
Yet often is the corporal sense awry. — 
Nature doth not so rip herself apart 
And cast her precious vitals to the dogs. — 
Ha! there be more illusions in the mind 
To make men fools than in the corporal sense. 
Her children's love, her honor, and her hope 
Of Heaven — could she do't and forfeit these ? 
It stands not to reason. — Saw I not her — 
Heard I not her voice, in love's position, 
And the plaintive tone } I think it cannot. 
That it ought not be, but that I see I know. 
Enter Ma lone. 

M ALONE. 

You desire to see me, Harold. -* 
Harold. 
Sir, I desire in that beggarly way 



IMBROGLIO, 11^ 

That words admit of, to apologize 
For my unfilial conduct to you. Oh! 
Malone. 

Harold, even as you spoke I pardoned, 

Knowing your acts were based on misconception- 

Harold. 
Fain would I plead exemption for those acts 
Upon the basis of my ignorance; 
But now my eyes are two full moons that glare 
From heaven's heights upon the wanton earth. 
A school-boy's piece!-0 God, that I might speak, 
Yet hear not my voice, know not its import. 

Malone. 

Harold, you are sick. 

Harold. 

Of a dread disease 
That knows no remedy; playmate of death; 
The skull and crossbone toy of this old world, 
The sport of quacks and jest of medicine. 
Where neath the sun grows that fair herb whose 

Can salve a breach in honor, cure wounded love, . 
Or heal the rent that patent bastardy 
Tears in a child's heart ? 

Malone. 

You are overwrought 
By study, Harold; 1 fear you have not slept. 



112 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 
Slept! slept! why, sir, I saw a sight to-night 
That cried aloud to all the sleeping tombs, 
Awake! awake! the judgment is at hand, 
The world is done, sleep no more forever! 

Malone. 
This uncontrolled demeanor is foreign 
To your ways. Calm yourself, if you would speak. 

Harold. 
Why, I am as calm as a dead ocean. 
Sir, I have something of great importance 
To tell you, which, though it break your heart, 
I pray you allow it not to disturb you. 
Out on address! it is the bawd that comes 
In the pale smock of an injured wife 
And plants polluted kisses on a son. 

Malone. 
You shoot me through the heart. 

Harold. 

Sir, a problem 
Or two in the ethics of human conduct. 
If one should know a friend's wife had betrayed 
Her husband, would it be a friendly act 
To tell him of her infidelity? 

Malone. 
The acme of disinterested friendship; 
But, oh, I fear the question's import. 



IMBROGLIO, 113 

Harold. 
One more: If a son should know his mother 
Had to his father been untrue, how now 
Would it be the part of filial duty 
To keep the secret locked up in his breast, 
Making his being putrid with its foulness ? 

Malone. 
I know too well the meaning of your words. 
Your mother, Harold, my wife, your mother } 

Harold. 
By the infinity of chances, sir; 
Excepting which I might have been an owl 
And hooted at the moon, a weed or tree, 
The deadly vapor of a tropic swamp, 
An atom to float in nihilism — 
The gaped at wonder of a race of fools. 

Malone. 
No, no, no, Harold, be not light at this. 

Harold. 
Light ? Oh, I am light! throw me overboard 
And I will rise down a million fathoms. 

Malone. 
What have you seen to throw you in this mood } 

Harold. 
Sir — for I dare not for the love of truth, 
Address you as my father any more — 
Have you observed in my mother's conduct 



114 IMBROGLIO, 

Any act smacking of iiiii)roj)iicly 
With your friend Maurice? 

Malonk. 

Oh, I have feared it ! 
Inscrutable Trovidcnce whose great design 
Has thus to you unfolded that which I 
Had with my cold lips sealed forever from you ! — 
Take warning bawds ! though you be coy as snakes 
And seek the covert of a cave, your deeds 
Shall blaze like ^^2tnas to the gaping world. 

Harold. 
Have you known this thing and not redressed it? 

Malonk. 
Alas ! I fear that you have seen much more 
Than I have seen. 

Harold. 

I have seen, sir, and heard. 

M alone. 
What, what ? 

Harold. 

A woman with my mother's face 
Slink, like a wanton, under night's cover 
To meet her paramour. 

Malone. 

What ! no, Harold. 
Harold. 
Yes; and I heard her beg for her dishonor 
As a sucking child cries for its mother's breast. 



IMBROGLIO. 116 

M ALONE. 

Where was that thunderbi-k of Jove that strikes — 

Harold. 
And then he packed her off into a place 
Wherein the modest stars might not behold 
Her infidelity, and shaming cease to shine. 

M ALONE. 

You are wrong, wrong; it has not gone so far. 

Harold. 
Have you known this thing and not redressed it ? 

Malone. 
I have but seen their winks, their knowing looks, 
Their lover's nods and smiles. 

Harold. 

Heaven and earth ! 

Malone. 
For nature could not these conditions hide; 
Yet ever this poor merit has she had 
That such a crime seemed quite impossible. 

Harold. 
It cannot be^ is the fool's argument. 
The dotard's recompense for lost love, 
The cuckold's o[)iate, that to the quietude 
Of self-deception, lulls us when we dare not look. 
And know that what is is. Out on such logic ! 

Malone. 
But to be certain of their crime and yet 



116 IMBROGLIO, 

Not have the proof of it is to be damned 

Without redress. O Harold, this it is 

That to my patience gives the marks of sufferance. 

Harold. 
To have the rank stench in the nose and yet 
Wait till the brain is j)oisoned unto death ? 

Malonk. 
No, Harold, but to hold our patience reined 
Until we have the proof of that degree 
That not a loop is left for her escape. 
In this be governed by my judgment, son. 

Harold. 
But she may catch the scent, and leave us held 
Betwixt the certainty of guilt and lack 
Of evidence — a life of hanging. 

Malone. 
There's the redemption of pollution, that once 
The film of chastity is pierced, no power 
In Heaven or earth can e'er restore it. 
Unchastity is a sore that never cures; 
The proof we seek will come uncalled, yet come. 

Harold. 
Oh, that we centers of a lawgirt world 
Alone should be transgressors of its laws ! 

(JLxit Harold.) 

Malone. 
At night, did he not say ? — in the park — 
Clandestine meeting — begging dishonor ! — 



IMBROGLIO, 117 

What means this ? Oh, if she be false to me ! — 

What do I care ? — And yet, that is a lie 

Told to me by myself, — for all the mines 

In the rich earth I would not have her false — 

With Bourne ? — the man I more than any hate — 

I am half convinced of it. His eyes, hair his — 

Oh, 'tis one thing to be false to one's wife. 

And another thing to have one's wife false ! 

Though I hate her as I do sin, and she 

Be ugly as an ape, dull as a worm. 

And tasteless as a stone, yet if she be 

False to me, she deserves a dozen deaths. 

This fellow Henchman is a subtle dog. 

He is under this, and would plot my wife 

Into crime and laugh at my discomfort. 

He shall explain this thing, and here he comes. 

Enter Henchman. 
Is my wife false to me ? 

Hknchman. 

S-s-s-h! certain, man, 
Unless you have esca])ed the common rule. 

Ma LONE. 

Are you a villain ? 

Henchman. 

If you think I am, 
Then to you I am. If you think I am not, 
Then to you I am not, for no one, sir. 
Is a liar, nor a thief, nor a villain 
Except as some one thinks him to be such. 
The reason is plain; will you hear it? 



118 IMBROGLIO. 

Malone. 
Oh, you could reason a man into hell. 

Henchman. 
Yes, most men, without trouble; but trust me, 
I could never reason them out again. 
But what ails your holiness ? 
Malone. 

Is my wife false ? 
Henchman. 
The very incarnation of falseness, 
As you desired it. 

Malone. 

You lie, you villain! 
Henchman. 
First, you ask me if I am a villain, 
Now you answer yes, and add me liar. 
You hire me to prove the falseness of your wife, 
When 'tis done you pay me off in curses. 
You break my heart {laughing). 

Malone. 
Ha! 
Henchman. 

Hu! 
Malone. 

Devil ! 
Henchman. 

Devilettel 



IMBROGLIO. 119 

M ALONE. 

Henchman! 

Henchman. 

Malonel 

Malone. 

Doctor, how came my wife — 

Henchman. 

By the grace of God. 

Malone. 

In the park at night — 

Henchman. 

You are answered. 

Malone. 

With this fellow Bourne ? 

Henchman. 

Oh, 'twas the foulest act in the whole play! 

Malone. 

Explain this, sir. 

Henchman. 

Thou me a little first. 
Malone. 
O doctor, have we not been bosom friends ? 
Has not my purse been open as my heart ? 

Henchman. 
Oh! now you melt me down. Edmund, come 

here — 
In confidence ? 



120 IMBROGLIO, 

Malone. 
Yes. 
Henchman. 

Utter confidence ? 
And you will not allow your righteous wrath 
To vent itself on me for telling truth ? 

Malone. 
Oh, never! 

Henchman. 

Oh, beware of jealousy ! 
Edmund, has not your wife a handkerchief 
Spotted with strawberries? (Malone ^j,w;zi^). This 

day did I 
On such a one, see Maurice wipe his nose. 

{Exit Malone.) 
Oh, you will try again to make an ass of me ! 
I am not so old but I know grain from chaff. 
Yet whether he be honest in his villainy 
Or hypocritical in his virtue 
I am in doubt; for I have heard a lie 
Oft told becomes the truth to him who tells it. 

E71 ter C AT H E R I N 10 . 
Dear madam, if I may, I hope and trust 
Your interview with Maurice in the park 
Tended to your advantage. 

Catherine. 

As yet, sir, 
I do not know, Maurice will do for me 
What lies within his power. 



IMBROGLIO. 121 

Henchman. 

Which God grant 
May be much. When do you next see Maurice ? 

Catherine. 
I know not, — when he shall see my husband. 

Henchman. 
What, did you not arrange the time ? 

Catherine. 

No, sir. 

Henchman. 
Nor the place either ? 

Catherine. 

I did not think of that. 

Henchman. 
Tut, tut! my injunctions have gone for naught. 

Catherine. 
Alas ! have I here made an error, sir ? 

Henchman. 
You should have set a time and place to get 

His answer. 

Catherine. 

Will you arrange it for me ? 

Henchman. 
With pleasure, madam; yet I think 'twere best — 
I have a kind of foolish backwardness 
In this affair, being but slightly known 
To Maurice — if you would simply write a note 



122 IMBROGLIO. 

And let me take it to him, it would lend 
A kind of zest or impulse to his act — 
Make him dispatch it with more earnestness. 

Catherine. 
Why, so I will. 

{She sits to write.) 

Henchman. 

Slightly importune him, 
As that the time drags until you see him. 

Catherine. 
Heaven knows it has a moping pace. 
To-morrow night ? 

Henchman. 

At the same hour and place. 
And pray you, madam, pass a little further 
To the rearward of the garden house — 
The foliage there is denser. 

Catherine. 

Ah, doctor, 
How kindly you have always treated me. 

Henchman. 

Think not of me, dear lady; all my thoughts 
And services, though by old age enfeebled. 
Are as much at your command as though you were 
My sovereign queen and I your humblest servant. 

{Exit Henchman.) 
Enter Harold unobserved by Catherine. 



IMBROGLIO. 123 

Catherine. 
O thou great Guardian of the world, 
To me be merciful, forgive my sins 
And to my mother's heart preserve my children's 

love. 
Here in the just hands of Heaven I place my 
cause. 

{Exit Catherine.) 

Harold. 
She has named Heaven her judge — a just Court. 
Shall I usurp the stern prerogative 
Of nature ? Is not a violated law 
Its own executor? Infinite Judge, 
Who can all mitigation see, shall I, 
Who am into confusion thrown to view 
A single point, and am but flesh and blood. 
At most her equal — shall I turn judge, 
And her presumptuously condemn to infamy ? 
May something not extenuate her guilt? 
A husband's coldness, her children's absence, 
The idleness of wealth, the heart's demands, — 
When nature strays shall nature's man condemn? — 
And, like a robber spotted in the act, 
Shall I, unwarranted, immure her, nor 
Let her these suspicious incidents explain ? 
Why, she is not unchaste, — 'twould make an end 
Of decency and murder modesty. 
Now I will call her back, lay bare my thought; 
Let her explain and set all things to right {going). 
Nay, I'll not do't, 'twould be indelicate; 



124 IMBROGLIO, 

Why does she not herself make mention of it ? 
And yet I will recall her, and to her 
So distantly and indirectly speak 
That, being innocent, she shall not see 
My purpose, and being putrid guilty, 
Cannot conceal her guilt. Mother, mother ! 
Now I am not prepared to question her. 
Re-enter Catherine. 

Catherine. 
Harold, did you not call me ? 
Harold. 

Yes, mother, yes. 
{Aside) Heaven help me. — I know not how to 
broach it. 

Catherine. 
Harold, what can your mother do for you ? 

Harold {aside'). 
Why now, hear that — sure she is innocent. — 
Nothing, mother, nothing; I did not call. 

Catherine. 
You would speak, Harold, of your mother's grief. 
I know the gentle spirit you conceal. 

Harold f^aside). 
The very cunning of it. — O mother. 
My heart is sore. 

Catherine. 

Nay, is it not enough 
That I should grieve ? It will all come right. 



IMBROGLIO, 125 

Harold. 
What think you, mother, of this thing called virtue ? 
Is it a substance; has it a being 
In itself apart from all utility 
Of time and place, surroundings and effects ? 
Or is it but a name, an airy ghost 
Culled from the visionary brains of fools. 
To fright the world from pleasure — how is this ? 

Catherine. 

Why, Harold, you know your mother is not versed 
In these great themes. 

Harold. 

'Tis sure the chief sophism 
Of a brainless world to claim that any act 
Has virtue in itself? 

Catherine. 

I know not that. 
Harold. 
But if the time and circumstance be pat, 
Where lies the harm ? 'Tis done; 'tis deaf; all's 
well. 

Catherine. 

Sure I am mazed to know your meaning, son. 

Harold. 
But is there not a universal law 
Drawn from ten thousand years of life 
That bids defiance to empiric fools ? 



126 IMBROGLIO. 

Catherine. 
Alas! your learning is beyond my grasp. 

Harold. 
Why look you here; is virtue not the essence 
Of a woman ? 

Catherine. 

It is her being's soul, 
The thing without which she would forfeit Heaven. 

Harold. 
But custom, mother, custom, nothing else. 
Had the world grown in loose licentiousness, 
To be unchaste would be most virtuous. 

Catherine. 
Why, Harold, you affright me with such words. 
Harold. 

Nay, mother, I was pretending, only. 

As the world waxed, unchastity has waned. 

Time was when men and women roamed like 

beasts; 
Came next the era when a humble man 
Would with a score of women be content, 
Or women with a dozen lovers; now — 
Mark how we advance! one man, one woman, 
Lovers none, — except it be the husband's friend. 
Of late the world has grown so monstrous good 
I hardly think there are above a score 
Of women on the earth who are not pure. 



IMBROGLIO. 127 

Catherine. 
I cannot see, my son, how there is one. 

Harold. 
And yet I once saw one, and mark you well 
How outraged nature on her stamped his curse. 
The blush of innocence was painted out; 
The pretty eyes, which once for shyness 
Dared not lift their lids, into a steely glare 
Of brazen affrontery, were changed; 
And lips, which might have borne the early imprint 
Of a mother's kiss, had beastly commerce 
Sapped of all their meaning when she grinned a 

smile; 
And all her features so distorted were 
As she had gone to hell to make her visage up. 

Catherine. 

Oh, horrible! 

Harold. 

Yet see how chastity 
Does finer than a spider's silver web 
Upon a woman's visage draw his silken lines. 

Catherine. 

What think you, Harold, that you have spoken 
thus? 

Harold. 

I was thinking — I was thinking — thinking, 

Of my — father. Good-night, mother, good-night. 

I have some thoughts to think ere I retire. 



128 IMBROGLIO, 

{He assists his mother hurriedly to the door.') 
{Exit Catherine.) 
Enter Henchman, unob sensed by Harold. 
Now either this be utter innocence 
Or the very cunning of practiced guilt, 
The which in action are twin born sisters. 
Mark how she shook when I described the bawd ! 
Yet one not guilty might have done that too. 
Why, look at her whole life of purity — 
Shall it not overweigh this ounce of doubt } 
It is a firmament of bright fixed stars, 
Whose light shall this suspicious meteor 
Extinguish never. She is not guilty. 

Henchman {aside). 
Wavering ? Then these be my arguments {holding 
up letters). 

(As Harold sees Henchman the latter 
pretends to attempt to conceal the letters 
in his pocket?) 

Harold. 
Henchman, what have you there ? 
Henchman. 

I ? Nothing, sir. 
Harold. 
Nothing, nothing ? Why, Henchman, should a 

man 
At the concealment of mere nothingness 
Make efforts such as these } You have something — 



IMBROGLIO. 129 

I feel it — about — oh, heavens ! — about 
That woman. Give it me this instant. 

Henchman. 
I have nothing that is to your concern. 

Harold. 
It is a lie; you have that there concerns me 
In my birth, my life, my honor, my all. 
I saw letters but a short moment since, 
Which your attempt to hide convinces me 
I have a right to see, and now produce them. 

Henchman. 
Why, Heaven help me, are you void of shame ? 

Harold. 
Deliver them, or I will take them from you. 

Henchman. 
Are you my sovereign, I your subject bore, 
That you do dare command me in this way ? 
Tut! if you think so, you had better have 
At your address the means to execute 
Your mandate, as you speak so like a king. 
Harold. 

See you these hands.? Think you that they would 

pause 
At such a very pigmy as you are } 

Henchman. 
Boy, I have the age to be your father— 

Harold. 
I care not if you are old as Adam. 



130 IMBROGLIO, 

Henchman. 
And though the white and black are mingled here- 
Harold. 



The letters. 



Dare you trifle ? 



Henchman. 

I have an oaken body — 
Harold. 



Henchman. 
I dare defend my rights. 
{They struggle for the letters,) 
Harold. 
It is my right. 

Henchman. 
Shame, shame! respect my age. 
Oh! oh! I am too old. 

Harold {taking the letter). 

Old man, forgive. 
Henchman. 

You have o'ercome me and taken the notes. 
I know not what they may contain, and 'twas 
For your sake I refused you sight of them. 
Now on your own head rest the consequence 
Of this rash act. 

Enter M alone. 

Oh ! oh ! I am near killed. 



IMBROGLIO, ' 131 

Ma LONE. 

Why, what offense is here? 

Harold {reading the letter). 

Dear Maurice: The hours drag with a weary 
pace till I again shall see you. Meet me at the same 
time and place to-morrow night. — Catherine:. 

I will be there. — Maurice. 

There's the offense, sir, if you have the nose. 
Whence came these letters ? Whence came these 
letters.? 

Henchman. 
One from your mother — 

Harold. 

Hated appellate ! 
Use some other name. 

Henchman. 
Your father's wife — 

Harold. 
Nor that either — oh, world of sin ! — say she. 
Henchman {^picking up letters'). 

Then she — pure woman ! — who did write this one, 

Begged me to give it to your father's friend. 

And all unknowing that it held such vile 

Proposals, I took it to the gentleman. 

A certain mood with which he took and read it. 

An amorous blush that overspread his face 

As he perused and re-perused the letter, 



132 IMBROGLIO. 

Roused my suspicions, and when he noted not 
I picked it up, intending to consign it 
To the flames. This is his answer; the two 
Speak for themsc-'ves; you know as much as I. 

{^Exit Harold.) 
Watch him close; for three nights he has not slept, 
And untold dangers live in such a brain. 

Re-e?iter Harold. 

Harold. 
There is no hell save earth, and devils none 
But wear clothes. Have you eyes that can behold 
The beasdy sight and not be blotted out? 

Malonk. 
We must prevent it. 

Harold. 

And live suspended 
Betwixt the past crime and a future chance. 
Let it go on — there's justice in our course — 
We will be there and trip them ere the act. 

{Exeunt omnes.) 



IMBROGLIO. 133 



ACT V. 

Malone's country place; a park ivith a fiower- 
house; night. 

Enter a Man and a Woman. 
Man. 
It's curious how we were brought here from the 
city so suddenly. 

Woman. 
Tin half afraid. Do you know where we are? 
Man. 
Since we left the station in the carriage I can't 
tell exactly, but 1 know about the place. 

Enter Henchman. 

Henchman. 
What's that? — and what's that in me? To walk 
through the park — sure, 'tis nothing — but to walk 
with this thing by me 1 An infamous undertaking ! 
I'll quit it here. Avaunt, you devil 1 They were 
to be here at this hour. 

Man. 
Halloo! 



134 IMBROGLIO, 

Henchman. 
Are you the man and woman who were sent 
from the city to meet a man here? 
Man. 
"^Ve were sent here by some one that we didn't 
know to meet a man. Are you the man, and what 
do you want ? 

Henchman. 
I want you to help me play a joke, ha ! ha ! ha ! 
— a devilish good joke ! 

Man. 
Well, for the best joke in the world we can't 
come here for nothing. 

Henchman. 
Certainly not. Here's a twenty for you each. 

Man. 
That's good ; now what's your joke ? 

Woman. 
It must be awful funny for so much money. 
Henchman. 
Ha! ha! — Well you see, my dear, I am one of 
those fellows who never cares for money when he 
can play a good joke. I am here visiting a country 
friend of mine — a regular dolt — and I have sworn 
to him that this house is haunted. {Laughing^ 

Man and Woman. 
Haunted ! 



IMBROGLIO. 135 

Henchman. 
Yes; has spirits, ghosts, in it, you know. 

Man. 
Why, who the devil believes in ghosts ? 

Woman. 
Well, I'm not so sure. 

Henchman. 

Why, nobody believes in ghosts, of course. 
There's the joke of it, and that's why I have brought 
you here to play the joke. I've told my friend 
that I've seen the spirit of a man and woman in 
this house at night, and have laid him a bet that 
he can see them here to-night. Ha! ha! — you 
see? 

Man. 

Ha ! ha ! We're to be the ghosts, ha ! ha ! 
Henchman. 
Not so loud, you might raise the ghosts. Now 
I want you to put on these wigs and things {the 
man and woman put on disguises^ which make them 
resemble Bourne and Catherine) and then go 
into this house. By-and-by you will see a man 
and woman pass this way, and following them will 
be two men with me. When you see me lift my 
cane, so, you woman raise the window, put your 
head out and cautiously look around; then get 
back and put the window down. After that you 
sit in his lap — 



136 IMBROGLIO, 

Woman. 
Is that the way ghosts do ? 

Henchman. 
That's the joke of it, for I've told this country 
lout that these ghosts act that way. When we look 
in at the window scream and run out the back way 
and make to the carriage quickly. 

Man. 
Capital joke this. 

Henchman. 
S-s-s-h ! Go in now. 

{They go in and Henchman locks the door^ 
The moon does muffle up her face to view 
An act so vile. Ha, 'tis a mucky deed ! — 
If I were out of it the wealth of earth 
Could not again entice me into it. 

{Exit Henchman.) 
Enter Bourne and Ckvwy.v.y^'s.^ followed at 
a distance by Malone, Harold and 
Henchman. Bourne and Catherine 
pass around the floiver-house by the door, 
which is so arranged that Harold cannot 
see it. Henchman lifts his cane and the 
Worlan raises the windoiv and follows 
Henchman's previous instructions. 
Henchman. 
Who would have thought her to have been so 
wise } 



IMBROGLIO, 137 

Malone. 

That argues great experience. 

Harold. 

Oh, vile act ! 
Can they live ? Shall they live ? Shall they not 
die.? 

Malone. 
O Harold, let her conscience be her hangman. 
Death would to her be sweeter than remorse. 

{^They look in at the ivindo^v ; then Har- 
old suddenly tries the door ; screams in- 
side and exeunt Man afid Woman ; 
Henchman ^^-^///^j with Harold.) 
Henchman. 
Boy, boy, beware of rashness ! 
Harold. 

Let me go. 
Henchman. 
Help me, Malone ! 

Harold. 

Unloose me, sir; away! 
Malone. 



Have mercy on her. 



She is your mother. 



Harold. 
Justice demands death. 

Malone. 



138 IMBROGLIO, 

Harold. 

'Tis a beastly lie, — 
She is a harlot, and has lived too long. 
Oh, if you loose me not — 

Malone. 

Harold ! Harold ! 
Harold. 
Not though your arms were chains. Are you a 

man — 
Oh, shame, shame ! Where is your honor that you 

can 
On this act look and let the guilty live 1 
Go boast of your dishonor, — away from me ! 

(^Breaks from them and exit?) 

Malone. 
He will kill them. 

Henchman. 

These are well on their way. 
If he escape the others 'tis a fortune. 
See ! they come, drawn hither by the noise. 
The time is yours ; now summon all your strength; 
Lay every nerve and muscle to your will. 
Wear you a face of thunder ; look fierce as hell, 
And when you strike leave terror in your wake ! 
So drive them hence, as out of Eden 
Jehovah drove the first great sinners. 

{Exit Henchman.) 
Enter Catherine and Bourne, running. 



Where was it ? 



IMBROGLIO, 139 

Catherine. 

Bourne. 



Sure, near here. 
Catherine. 

'Twas Harold's voice. 
He cried unloose jue, as though robbers had him. 
My husband ! 

Malone. 
How now, woman! throbs your heart? 
O Kate, that I should find you in this act! 

Catherine. 
Alas ! what act ? 

Malone. 
That vice should in such shape 

Enrobe itself! 

Bourne. 

Edmund, in Heaven's name — 
Malone. 
Oh, in the name of hell, rather say you ! 
Destroyer of my peace, my happiness. 
My home ; betrayer of my wife ; traitor 
To holy friendship's cause — you who for years 
Have lived upon my honor and my life — 

Catherine. 
Edmund, what mean you ? — I am stricken dumb. 

Malone. 
'Tis time, 'tis time. O wretch unnamable ! 



140 IMBROGLIO. 

Bourne. 
Sure you are mad, for this cannot be sport. 

Malone. 
The very cunning of a mind diseased — 
I am that fool who comes to beg of you 
The honor of my wife. I am grown old 
And my children need it. Can you not patch 
The rent made in a woman's virtue, piece up 
The broken fragments of a wife's honor, 
And to the husband make the scar unseen } 
Where is the honor of my wife ? 
Catherine. 

O Edmund ! 

Bourne. 

Thought I you sane, those words should be your 
last. 

Malone. 
The very thing : steal first the honor of the wife 
Then seek a pretext for the husband's murder. 
Here is my heart, come both of you and take 
The flesh, since you have stolen its immortal part. 
Oh, wring your hands as you have wrung my heart. 

Bourne. 
Mean you, Malone, I have betrayed your w ife } 

Malone. 
Witness the deliberate villainy ! 
The very hardened iciness of crime. 
Or do you mean to play upon the words } 



IMBROGLIO. 141 

'Tis no matter if you say betrayed, 

Stolen, robbed, plundered or purchased, 

Honor, virtue, chastity or what not ; 

You have taken that which was neither mine 

Nor hers, nor any one's to give, but was 

A gift from Heaven, a loan at birth — 

To be returned at death — that without which 

A woman is a mass of rotten flesh — 

That you have stolen and left her what you see. 

B0U*RNE. 

Down on your knees ; for this gross insult beg 
The pardon of your wife, or else I kill you. 

Catherine. 
Hold ! stay ! Maurice, he is still my husband. 

Bourne. 
Am I a man, to see you so outraged ? 

Catherine. 
Mine honor's purity is not thus soiled. 
My fate is yonder and I fear him not. 

Malone. 
Out of my sight — you public shames, away ! 

Bourne. 
Ha ! public shames ! 

Catherine. 

Peace, Maurice, peace, — 
A word and I am gone — 'tis wondrous 
What a mighty calmness steals upon me. 
Edmund, I have endured your insults. 



142 IMBROGLIO. 

Stood your taunts, by your disdain been withered, 
Crouched 'neath your formless charges and begged 

you 
Give them shape. — This, and more than tongue 

can tell, 
I have borne from you, hoping to win you back, 
And I as innocent of any crime 
As is the newest babe. It was the wife — 
The loving and obedient wife — 
Such as my mother taught me how to be, 
That bid me do all this. But now you have 
Impeached my chastity, and this shaft pierces 
Beyond the wife and strikes the woman, 
And 'gainst this last and heinous outrage 
Every atom of the woman in me 
Stands up in fierce rebellion. — Oh, witness thou 
Who art beyond the stars, how innocent I am ! — 
Enough. I leave you now as spotless 
As that day you took me as your wife. 
But going shall demand, if there be justice, 
In this world the rights which God has given me. 
{Exeunt Catherine and Bourne. ) 
Re-enter Henchman. 

Henchman. 
To dare to do the deed is one thing. x\ye. 
But to carve the bird through the joints — 'tis that, 
In faith, which tries the skilled anatomist. 
The devil bows and bids your holiness godspeed. 

Malone. 
Out. you dog ! 



IMBROGLIO, 143 

Henchman. 
Dare you say so much ? 

Malone. 

Be gone ! 
Henchman. 
Ha ! ere the sun has tipped yon peaks with gold 
The wired spark shall to the globe's end have 

flashed 
Your infamy. 

Malone. 

Stay ! forgive me, Doctor. 
Henchman. 
Forgive, the devil ! 

Malone. 

But I meant it not. 
Henchman. 
Before you sleep to-night, put in this hand 
A hundred thousand dollar check on bank, 
Or, by my soul, I send you to perdition. 

Malone. 
So much } 

Henchman. 

Not a farthing less. 

Malone. 

Ah! I see. 
You are in some emergency for means. 
The check is yours. When one friend does re- 
fuse 



144 IMBROGLIO, 

Another help, how meanly looks the act. 

Henchman. 
Indeed it does; and I have late observed 
How bad the old world is become, till now 
Virtue has laid aside her past white robe 
And wears the raiment of necessity, — 
Foul, tarnished garment, it makes the nose ill. 

Malone. 
Indeed, I greatly fear it is the case. 

i^Exit Malone.) 
Henchman. 

How unexpected fortune falls upon us! 
That his rash words have given me the chance 
To say the words at which I long have paused. 
This money in my hand, the devil take his cause. 

(^Exit Henchman.) 
Re-enter Catherine cmd Bourne. 
Bourne. 
No more, Catherine, no more. 

Catherine. 

I cannot go. 
It was the injured woman then that spoke; 
I am the wife and loving mother now. 
Maurice, will my children think my virtue gone.-* 
Heavenly powers, let them not think so! 
Madness is in that thought — I will go wild. 
I must look on my children ere I go; 
From their sweet lips the dear assurance have 



IMBROGLIO. 145 

That they believe me pure. God in Heaven, 
Thou wilt not let me die and have them think 
I am unchaste ? O Father, let me live 
Till by some light from Heaven I prove 
How innocent I am. 

Bourne. 

Calmed be your mind — 
Catherine. 
They cannot think it, Maurice ? 
Bourne. 

No, no, no; 
You are their idol; your children worship you, 
And Nature's hand to your safe rescue coming. 
Will teach their love their mother's purity. 
Catherine. 

thank you, Maurice, — kind Heaven grant it. 
Alas ! to be discarded thus — turned out 

To go alone, or go along with him 

Who is with me accused of this foul crime, 

And make suspicion sure, — flee like a thief 

1 know not where, in the dark, from my home; 
What crime is done that on me innocent 
This heavy visitation falls } Ah, me ! 

Bourne. 
Our innocence must be the armor of our course. 

Catherine. 
Our trust in Heaven. Fare thee well, Maurice, 
Till I see my children. Alas! that I 
Should like a traitor slink into my home 
And steal the kiss that should of right be mine. 

(^Exit Catherine.) 
10 



146 IMBROGLIO. 

Bourne. 
If it be true there is an unseen hand 
That guides the destiny of man, how stranger 
Than the world itself its movements are. 
'Tis these that make me doubt; these snap the cord 
Of faith, making the universe an anarchy. 

Justice, hast thou no part in Divinity? 

{Exit Bourne.) 
Re-enter Harold followed J)y Catherine. 
Catherine (aside). 

1 saw him come this way; yes, 'tis Harold 

Harold {soliloquizing). 
My mother? — no, not she, yes, even she — 
Even she whose labors gave to me birth — 
O God ! O God ! become a harlot ! 
Even she who suckled me at her breast — 
O murdered virtue ! how could any one 
Who from her body has sustained a life. 
Make of that body uses such as these ? 
And after five and twenty years to turn — 
Stopped be my breath that I speak not the word. 
'Tis a curse — a curse of hell upon me 
That my poor heart can bear this and not burst. — 
When from her body the lascivious 
Had been robbed by age to turn a lewd ! 
When at her feet the world's wealth lay, and she 
Stripped of the shabby raiment of necessity 
That e'en the veriest bawd can blazon 
To the world as an excuse. — What is it ? 



IMBROGLIO. U7 

A moment plunge from purity to this — 

After an age of virtue? — A fool's thought ! 

'Tis the remembrance of a hot young love — 

This monster serpent was not born to-day. 

It has — it has— it has lived before ! 

And I — I — who am I ? Who is my father ? 

My face, these eyes, this nose, this mouth, these 

cheeks, 
And every lineament proclaims me bastard! 

Catherine. 
Harold ! 

Harold. 

Heavenly love, are your prayers said ? 
Where is your lover ? 

Catherine. 

I have no lover, Harold. 

Harold. 

Do you see yon hag } She was sent down there 
For lying. There's another; mark how she 

writhes ! 
She sold her body as a passion slave, 
And damned her soul. Yes, but see yonder 

wretch; 
She tore the family altar up 
And used its cloth to light the fire of lust. 
Made bastards of her children, her husband 
Drove to the grave, and flung her offspring out 
To the ravishment of wolves. 



148 IMBROGLIO. 

Catherine. 

O Harold, 
I am not guilty! 

Harold. 

What hellish power 
Supports you in those words, when one short 

moment hence 
You shall behold the yawning depths of hell ? 
Think it ! one minute more and you shall stand — 
Your sins labeled upon your naked soul — 
Before that Judge who never errs. Can you 
Then say, / have committed no adultery ? 

Catherine. 
My soul has not that sin which makes me fear 
To meet my God — 1 am so innocent. 

Harold. 
O monstrous sin that can so stand undaunted 
In the face of Heaven ! Yet I'll not do't — 
Each rivulet that stained these hands would grow 
A bloody river on my soul, or rise 
Each one a snake, to fright me into hell 
For safety's sake — O coward that I am ! 

Catherine. 
You do not believe me guilty. Say it, 
O my son ! 

Harold. 

Son, son ! True you did^bear me. 
But can you name my father? Oh, cringing 

shame ! 
Remorse, if thou canst eat into a mothers heart. 
Here is thy food. 



IMBROGLIO, 149 

Catherine. 
Oh! 
Harold. 

Who is my father ? 
Or, if you know not, say it, and I'll go 
Find him by his looks in the public ways. 

Catherine. 
Oh, do not kill me with these dagger words ! 

Harold. 
Avaunt, you thing ! your manner owns your guilt. 

Catherine. 
If there be any dot upon my life — 

Harold. 
'Tis well if it be less than ulcer all. 
Catherine. 

Harold, can you think that this poor frame — 

Harold. 
This sacred tenement of flesh. 
Catherine. 

Oh, me ! 
Harold. 

1 will hear your reason. 

Catherine. 

This poor body 
That gave you birth, that fed your life, 
And watched you grow from tiniest babyhood, 
That for so many years followed your father 



150 IMBROGLIO, 

Through sickness and through poverty, could now 
Commit so great a crime against her God, 
Her children, husband, and against herself? 

Harold. 
Who could do acts like these, could say this, too. 
And it affects me not. I do not think I know. 

Catherine. 
Harold, I could have stood your father's taunts, 
His hatred, his disdain, his accusations; 
I could have borne the flings the world might cast 
Upon me, the smarting slaps from papers. 
The cruel gossip, the lies and calumnies; 
But to have you, my son, whose words come only 
From the deep convictions of your honest heart. 
Accuse me, your mother, who so loves you 
That she would give her life for yours, of lack 
Of chastity — O God, what have I done 
To cause this forfeit of my children's love ? 

Harold. 
You can make me weep — my eyes are used to 

tears. 

Catherine. 
O Harold, throw aside these shady doubts. 
And clearly peer into my life and heart. 
Come to me, Harold; look into my face. 
Do you see shame or guilt there } Do these lips 
Speak to you lies? Do these eyes look to you 

lies? 
Do I so act as one whose chastity is gone ? 



IMBROGLIO. 151 

Harold. 
If I had not seen it — 

Catherine. 

Nay, but seen what ? 
If there be any speck upon my life — 

Harold. 
Why, what a slave am I ! — eyes damning eyes, 
Judgment with sense at war, reason and love 
Contesting — the dust of every passion's wind. 
Here is my only footing: I have seen 
Your guilt, yet spared your life — leave me forever. 
Enter Richard and Helen. 
Catherine 
O cruel, cruel son ! cannot these tears 
Plead with you, Harold.^ Let me upon my knees 
Before you, as you a little child were wont 
To come to me with all your little woes, 
And beg you do not think me gone to shame. 

Harold. 
O God ! away ! your presence makes me think 
Of naught but death, damnation, hell — away ! 

Helen. 
Oh, what is this } 

Richard. 

Harold, are you gone mad, 
That you thus dare insult my mother ? 

Harold. 
Cease, boy, you know not what you prate on. 



152 IMBROGLIO. 

Richard. 
Where is that filial love that often you 
Have chidden me with lack of? 

Harold. 

Dare you question ? 

Helen. 
For shame, Harold, for shame to act so ! 

Harold. 
You too ? well, well, go follow in her track. 

Richard. 
Beware, Harold ! this lady is my mother. 

Catherine. 
Richard! Harold! 

Harold. 

Go keep her company. 
Helen. 
Fear you not God's vengeance to dishonor thus 
Your mother ? 

Harold. 

She is herself dishonored. 

Richard. 

Retract that ! 

Harold. 

Why, you puny imp, begone ! 
Richard. 
Harold, I brand you the paid defamer 
Of your own mother for your father's gold. 



IMBROGLIO, 153 

Harold. 
Ha ! boy, I will tear you into pieces. 

Richard. 
If you can. 

Catherine. 
Hold, my sons {goes between iheni). 
Harold. 

Accursed name! 
Come on, Richard. 

Catherine. 

You shall not fight. 

Richard. 

Come on. 
Harold. 
I have a dagger that was meant for me — 

Richard. 
I fear you not. 

Catherine. 

I am your mother, both, 
And by that right command you to desist. 

Harold {bewildered). 
Richard— my father's gold — did you not say 
My father's gold bribed me ? I was dreaming. 
Father! father! — there they are— Oh, shame, 

shame ! 
Let it go on — I will be there with you. 

{Exit Harold.) 
Re-enter Malone on one side, Bourne on 
the other. 



154 IMBROGLIO. 

Malone. 
Are you still here? Hell fattens on your stay — 
Get you gone, ere you have done a murder. 

Catherine. 
I am going now. 

Richard. 
Going, mother.? where.? 
Catherine. 
I do not know — your father drives me out. 

Richard. 
Why, then, he drives me out. 
Helen. 

And Helen, too. 
Re-enter Harold. 

Harold. 
Go get you to your beds — the night needs rest, 
The world is cracked and nature is at war. 
Come, ruin's dogs, and feast on this discord. 
The world's a graveyard; life's but a nightmare, 
And hell awaits us all — go to your posts. 

(^Exeunt Harold and Malone 07ie side, the 
rest on the other. ^ 

[In an age in which the patrons of the drama demand that their feel- 
ings be not too rudely shaken up, I am compelled to offer some sort of 
an apology for the introduction of a scene so wild as this. My purpose, 
of course, is to forcibly illustrate the breaking up of the family state, a 
civil war in the sovereignty of home. Those who can view this through 
the eyes of the chief character, and see in it something akin to the 
cracking up of a world, may appreciate my motive though they con- 
demn the execution. — The Author.] 



IMBROGLIO. 155 



ACT VI. 

SCENE. — Malone's house hi San Francisco; a 
room. 

Enter Harold and Henchman opposite. 
Henchman. 

Harold, you are looking very ill; 

1 fear me you are not so well to-day. 

Harold. 

Indeed ! Now what traitors our feelings are; 
And how warped our judgment on our own looks. 
I am that silly fool who courts himself 
For a beauty. Oh, I am grown the slave 
Of the mirror, and come to think myself 
The first of charmers. 

Henchman. 

I am glad to see 
How light your spirits are. 

Harold. 

Oh, heavens, yes! 
My spirits have that leaden buoyancy — 



156 IMBROGLIO, 

And yet they have a most uncertain quality; 
That sometimes when I laugh I weep — as 'twere 
They slip the knot and fall a thousand miles 
Into the ocean of my soul. 

Henchman. 

For this 
You must take something. 

Harold. 

Indeed, I must, sir; 
Yet I know not what it should be, unless 
It be my life. 

Henchman. 

Tut, tut! some medicine. 

Harold. 

Sir, a little sport in the way of a conundrum: 
Can you tell me the greatest trade in the world ? 

Henchman. 

I have not thought. 

Harold. 

Why, 'tis that of giving medicine. 

Henchman. 
The proof? 

Harold. 
Its deeds. 

Henchman. 
How so } 



IMBROGLIO. 157 

Harold. 

Why, you have outwitted the Almighty, and 
nature has succumbed before your efforts. Once 
men had sound minds in healthy bodies, and died, 
like other beasts, of old age. Now note the end 
of your herculean task: a sound mind, a healthy 
body, or a death by old age, is a museum wonder. 

Henchman. 

I think you lay too much to bad doctoring. 

Harold. 

Very well, very well, father it where you will, 
it's all one to mankind. There's not one of God's 
human creatures in a thousand but is deformed, 
crippled, or illshapen. 

Henchman. 
You are too sweeping. 

Harold. 

Not a whit. Take the face: the eyes— bleared, 
bold, squint, meaningless, villainous, shrewd, thriv- 
ing — a hundred such to one that's fit to look on; 
the nose — stub, hook, or crook, an outrage on 
the face; the mouth— flabby, open, gaping, 
loose, lascivious, long-lipped, short-lipped, grinning, 
or villainously taut; the head malformed and ugly 
generally. 

Henchman. 

Hold! 



158 IMBROGLIO, 

Harold. 

Yourself. Look at the rest of your man! The 
body — fat, blubbery, or lean and cadaverous; 
dwarfs and giants; hunchbacks and swaybacks and 
deformities ad infinitum. Oh, when you see one 
man or woman perfect formed, behold a million 
malformed, illshapen eyesores I And where's 
your being but has some pain — a weak stomach, 
bad liver, disordered kidneys, aching bones, de- 
cayed lungs, affected hearing, fading sight? Lord, 
what a thing has man degenerated into — a sickly, 
illshapen man of dirt. Out on it ! the world had 
best begin again ! 

Henchman. 

But, Harold; you look at the outer man only — 
his mechanism merely. Behold the inner man, 
the mighty mind, the pure heart, the contrite — 
Harold. 

Sightless old idiot! Your inner man — your 
mental, moral, spiritual man ! Why, this thing 
that covers us is a perfect paragon of beauty by 
the side of the hideous devil that lurks inside. 
Out on your inner man ! He is a very mass of 
fallacy, corruption, dishonesty, and hypocrisy. 
His judgment — the spoiled instinct of the brute; 
his will — an arbitrary despot; his love — the coacher 
of his lust; his hate — the dictator of his interest; 
feelings, desires all, but purveyors to his appetites. 
Oh, your inner man is the most monstrous criminal 



IMBROGLIO, 159 

in the world — a committor of all the crimes on 
the statute every day, a murderer when ruffled; 
an adulterer at sight of a woman; a grasping 
thief each minute; a secret blasphemer; a notorious 
liar, lying even to himself; and as for that other 
class of crimes called moral errors — hypocrisy, in- 
sinuation, and their thousand sisters and brothers 
— why, God save me! your inner man lives on them. 
Oh, your inner man is a fine villain, a sharp, 
shrewd villain, a villain who commits most of his 
murders, adulteries, and other crimes, in thought; 
for, mark you, his outer accomplice is as big a 
coward as your inner man is a villain ! What a 
splendid thing, indeed, is your man, your inner 
and outer deformity and outrage on nature ! 

Henchman. 
You look too much on the dark side of life. 

Harold. 
Life! what is life! The millionth hap of chance; 
The breathing stone; the cackle of a clod; • 
Earth lust endowed ; a feeling energy 
To sport a moment in the wind of time 
And then go back to nothing! Oh, woeful day 
That nature capped her work and stung 
Into unfeeling earth the power to suffer! 

Henchman. 
You see it through the dark glass of your own eye. 

Harold. 
Are you here.^ Oh, very well, very well, 
I would be alone; my mood is inward. 



160 IMBROGLIO. 

{Exit Henchman.) 
And this is life, — the thing for which we're^born, — 
The output of divinity ? Why, no — 
Why, surely no — a fallacy of fools! 
Yet in a drop of life what pleasures thrive; 
To quaff the possibilities of which 
Outweighs the ending of its pains. 'Tis this — 
For this — we make our minds and bodies slaves, 
That lends tenacity to earthly stay. 
And cries a halt to e'en the crippled, blind, 
Despised misery and cracked old age. 
But what have I — besmerched by infamy, 
All purpose dead and hope beyond a hope. 
To hold me to a life that I despise } 
The fear of death ? a groundless apprehension ! 
Death is the well man's terror, nothing more {takes 

a dagger in his hand). 
'Tis said, 'tis done, 'tis over, and oblivion 
Like a shroud falls on existence — Charlotte! 
Enter Charlotte. 

Charlotte. 
Harold, are you alone ? 

Harold. 

Alone, alone, — 
Even to the exclusion of myself. 

Charlotte. 
No, Harold, not so lonely; there is one 
Whose love, though it be sister's love, has yet 
That constant quality it rivals life. 



IMBROGLIO. 161 

Harold. 
Oh, you avenging powers which sometimes burst 
Your wrath upon the wicked in their deeds,— 
If ever scornful finger point at this pure head, 
If ever viper whisper in her ear, 
If ever eye unchastely look at her, 
You forked fiery messenger of God, 
Burn up the body ere the act is done, 
And to perdition send his cursed soul ! 

Charlotte . 
O Harold ! 

Harold. 

If you are honest, fear not. 

Charlotte. 
You would not think me otherwise than pure .? 

Harold. 
No ; for the world I would not think so. 
O you minx, you can hug, kiss, and betray 
A man all in a minute. 

Charlotte. 

My brother ! 
Harold. 

'Tis so ; for once — O Heaven, a hundred times ! — 
My mother came to me, her eyes o'erbrimmed 
With tears so sacred — yes, she — O God! — even 

she — 
Her visage primed so full of innocence 
It had drawn pity from a stone; and tlien — 
11 



162 IMBROGLIO. 

Even then — when on her knees she prayed Heaven 
To guard her from pretended wrong — O shame! 
Her inner eye was searching for a place, 
Her mind, that prayed, was planning out a way, 
To play her husband false. 

Charlotte. 

Would I were dead — 
Harold. 
It kills my tongue to tell you, as it does 
Your ear to hear this. Leave me now, Charlotte. 
Companionship with me has something deadly 
In it, that smothers up the love of life. 
I know the heart that throbs within your breast; 
It is my own; I can feel it in you 
Tugging and straining and trying to burst 
The solid flesh that holds it prisoner. 

{^Exii Charlotte.) 
There's sure a god in life that guides our acts. 
And stayed my hand which but a moment since 
Had hurried off my life and unprotected left 
My sister in the world. Oh, 'tis the curse 
Of fools, this thinking too much on themselves! 

Enter Hortens Technor. 

HORTENS. 

This is Harold, son of Edmund Malone? 

Harold. 
Indeed! Is it.^ Ah, madam, you little know 
Of what surpassing wisdom you are possessed. 
Who are you ? 



IMBROGLIO, 163 

HORTENS. 

One, sir, who knows your father. 
Harold. 
Wise, very wise, mysteriously wise! 
I would change places with you, when I think 
You would be less informed than you are now. 

HORTENS. 

I have some knowledge of your parents' troubles. 

Harold. 
Ah ! think not that you surprise me, madam; 
Being a modest looker-on in the world, 
I have observed this characteristic 
Of your sex: that you take on the knowledge 
Of others' troubles as though the bearing 
Of the knowledge helped to bear the troubles. 

HORTENS. 

Peace, sir! Though in my manner there may lurk 
Suspicion — 

Harold. 

Pardon, madam, in your air 
There is a certain and majestic grace 
That makes, me think that you are carved from 

stone — 
Or should be — or should be — for flesh is weak. 

Hortens. 
I have come here as your friend — 

Harold. 

Ah, indeed! 
Good, friendly madam, friends are like gnats; 



164 IMBROGLIO. 

In our summer time they swarm about us, 
But in our winter era, I am told, 
These insects do prefer the foulest dirt 
I'o our poor cor.vany. Yes, good madam, 
Friends are as abundant in this great world 
As other creeping things, and yet you might, 
With the finest comb, scrape the universe 
And ne'er catch one. Does not the homeliness 
Of my figures make you in love with them ? 

HORTENS. 

There is a kinship in our feelings there 
Which somewhat robs the language of its sting. 
I am here to help you and am not deterred. 
Harold. 

Really, your kindness is excessive; 

One of a mean and gross, suspicious turn. 

Which, Heaven helping, nature gave me not — 

Oh, I am soft as water, pliable 

As dough, but point your finger at my head 

And I will think your thoughts; yet, as I say, 

One tinctured with suspicion might have thought 

You had another object in this visit. 

HORTENS. 

I have seen the day those words had cost you ; 
But now I am so humbled in mine own 
Esteem, I have no motive in my thoughts 
Except to prove myself an honest woman. 

Harold. 
An honest woman? Now Heaven preserve you! 



IMBROGLIO. 165 

How desolate and lonesome this world must seem. 
Die, lady, die, and I will have erected 
To your memory a monster monument 
In the most public place on this broad earth. 
A stately, solid column it shall be, 
O'er-topping all the petty works conceived^ — 
So tall that it shall do obeisance 
To the sun as o'er the earth his daily 
Concourse sweeps, and call the world to notice. 
You on the top, worked by the finest sculptor 
Of the age, shall stand, scorning the lustful earth, 
And converse holding none save with the stars. 
And yet you shall be made of hardest stone, 
Lest e'er immortalized you fall; for once — 
I knew a woman once, who fell when she 
Had all the props of earth to hold her up — 

woman, if that cold face belie you not. 
If you were but above the bribing power 
Of wealth, by beauty unseducible, 
Unswerved by lust, by honor only moved, 

1 would translate you to the clouds and cry 

To all the world. Behold^ a woman has been born! 

Nay, note me not, — I am that rumbling fool 

Who follows o'er the marshy earth a spark, 

A fleeting nothing, that lives but in my brain, 

Till sickened nature calls me to a stop, 

And cries. Thou fool! Who are you, madam? 

speak. 
What want you? I have other things to do. 

HORTENS. 

You do my sex injustice. 



^66 IMBROGLIO, 

Harold. 

Well, well, well. 

HORTENS. 

I am not the being you suppose me, 
Nor ye so bad as you might think me. 

Harold. 
To your theme. 

Hortens. 
My name is Hortens Technor. 

Harold. 
You should have been a Greek, and made of stone. 

Hortens. 
I am here to save your mother. 

Harold. 

Madam, 

You should go save the heathen. 
Hortens. 

To save her 
From an outrage cowardly and infamous. 

Harold. 

A very cunnmg and well-spoken lie. 

Hortens. 
May I speak? 

Harold. 

If you tell no lies. Go on; 
Though, pardon madam, my ears are crammed 
With such discord they may not hear you well. 



IMBROGLIO, 167 

HORTENS. 

I, too, have had my wrongs. These I might store 

Down in my soul's deep solitude to sleep; 

But on my wrongs another woman's rights 

Repose; and here I swear, in telling this, 

My solitary motive is to lift 

From your unspotted mother that dark cloud 

With which two scoundrels have enveloped her. 

Harold. 
An object laudable and plausible, 
Yet methinks it sounds too well committed. 

HORTENS. 

May I speak? 

Harold. 

Conditioned as before. 

HORTENS. 

On the occasion of your father's visit 
To this city, when first his golden wealth 
Revealed him to the wondering world, I met him; 
He loved me from the first. 

Harold. 

If that be false, 
It has the merit of some interest. 

HORTENS. 

His honest way of wooing caused no thought 
That he was other than a single man. 
His hotly pressed affection by degrees 
Grew on me till at length I loved him 
With all the ardor of a nature deep. 
If not impulsive. 



168 IMBROGLIO, 

Harold. 

I cry you pause ! — 
The unknown quantity in wedded life, 
The X in the equation of our married state. — 
Ha! you mistress — 

HORTENS. 

By heavens you wrong me ! 
Harold. 
Go, get you to your brothel — 

HORTENS. 

You wrong me — 
I am not wicked, as my acts will show. 

Harold. 
Then get to Heaven, or you will soon be. 

HORTENS. 

Alas ! you are mad to talk so. 
Harold. 

Alas! 
Are there no fathers left to prey upon, 
No families whole to break and quarter? 

HORTENS. 

I knew not he was married till too late. 

Harold. 

There's some redemption for you in that fact- 
Why, who am I, that have a mother like you, 
That I dare rail so loud at your disgrace ? 



IMBROGLIO. 169 

HORTENS. 

I say you wrong me there; I loved him 
With the warranty of love, not lust 

Harold. 

I have it so; you loved him; he loved you; 
You knew not he was married — the tale drags. 

HORTENS. 

Then burst the meteor of his marriage 
On my cloudless sky — 

Harold. 

I am not critical. 

HORTENS. 

Post haste I charged him with his infamy, 
But his protesting love and cunning lie, 
Drove off determination from her throne 
And sat a foul usurper there. He said — 
Meanwhile heaving a thousand broken sighs — 
That his wife had broken her marriage vows, 
And that he was about to institute 
Proceedings for divorce; that for my love 
He wished it ended before I knew it, 
And when 'twas over we should be united. 
I listened, doubted, but love o'ercame me, 
And I believed him. 

Harold. 

And like the fable 
Of the cat and monkey — 



170 IMBROGLIO. ' 

HORTENS. 

O, hear me, sir! 
'Twas but a night ago he came to me 
Deep flushed with wine, and either from that cause, 
Or from that other one which makes a man 
Tell to a woman things which he would not 
To his own mind confess, with raillery 
He told me that a certain Doctor Henchman, 
Yourself, and he, had seen the faithlessness 
Of your mother, and the divorce would soon 
Be granted. 

Harold. 
On, on, on — stop not on that I 

HORTENS. 

The boldness of the act and its relator 
Abashed me, and led me on to discourse 
On the depravity of such a thing; 
Saying, above all things it passed wonder 
How any woman could to him be faithless. 
This seemed to touch him in a tender point, 
For straight a solemn aspect overcame 
His raillery; then he paused; then wavered; 
vVnd then, with a shrewd cunning in his eye. 
He winked, and said he would confess to me — 
To only me, for that in me he had 
Such confidence he knew I would not tell it, 
That it was naught but talk and balderdash 
About his wife's unfaithfulness to him. 



IMBROGLIO. 171 

Harold. 
Oh, if I have wronged her, may Providence 
Put out these eyes to never see her more! — 
Woman, let what you speak be true or die. 

HORTENS. 

So is it word for word. And more, he said 
That the appearance of your mother's guilt 
Had been produced by this man Henchman, 
To furnish evidence for the divorce. 

Harold. 
This is a lie; I saw it all myself. 

Hortens. 
Nay, hold, and I will tell you of that, too. 
At such tremendous infamy I grew 
Indignant, and formed the resolution 
There and then to save your mother from it; 
To which end I gave him good encouragement 
To tell me all, with a pleased mien my purpose 
Well concealing. Then he related to me 
The dreadful story of that awful night 
When he led you, his son — O sovereign shame ! — 
To look into the window of some house 
There to behold your mother and the man. 

Harold. 
O kill, do not refresh my memory! 

Hortens. 
Wait, sir, — 'twas not your mother that you saw. 
Nor Bourne, but two masked bawds by Hench- 
man's hand 
Cunningly disposed there to deceive you. 



172 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 

Go on, liar; tell me I am not here; 

Tell me the world is not; dispute my being; 

Show that the sun is but a red-hot pot, 

By the blowing of the cook's breath kept so. 

I am a little baby, to be told 

Of giants, goblins, fairies, devils, gods. — 

Come, be my nurse, fair lady, sing a song. 

HORTENS. 

And unto this my fair intentions come. 

Harold. 
Oh, now, if she be pure — 

HORTENS. 

And she is pure. 
Harold. 

What depth of hell can my accursed soul 

Find fit for punishment?- — Dare I again 

Behold her, see her piteous face ? — 

Oh, hers were tears which might have melted stone. 

Moved trees to weep, or anything save me I 

Hortens. 
She will forgive you. 

Harold. 

Oh, never, never! 

Hortens. 
I know ^he will — 



IMBROGLIO. 173 

Harold. 

You know she will ? — Why, then, 
You come from her to work my feelings up. 

HORTENS. 

I never saw her. 

Harold. 

Away, away ! 
This is another scheme to murder truth. — 
I have too long been but the sport of plots, 
And whipped about by every wind that blows. 

HORTENS. 

sir, if there be any test of honesty 
Put me to it, and if I fail, then rest 
Upon me everlasting infamy. 

Harold. 
Will you face my father and say these things ? 
Hortens. 

1 will face him, or any man, or place. 

Harold. 

Then I will do't. — These things can be no worse 
Than they are now. Madam, take yonder room; 
Anon I will explain my purpose to you. 

i^Exit Hortens.) 
Now will I send for them and fetch them all 
So facing one another as shall try 
Their several honesty of purpose. 

{Exit Harold.) 



174 IMBROGLIO. 

Enter Henchman with a pocket book. 

Who would not rather have a hundred thousand 
dollars in his pocket, than twice that sum and have 
his body locked in jail ? 

Ah! my little bank notes, how arc you ? 

Henchman, come into Court ! — Henchman away 
in Germany among the mysteries. Henchman, 
come into Court ! — Henchman smiling at the 
sphynx. Henchman, come into Court ! — Hench- 
man snoozing in the land of Budda. 

Ah! my wiley lawyer, fare you well, 

My carpet bag is packed and I'm off to — Ciermany. 

Enter Glasco. 

CiLASCO. 

Is Malone in ? 
In where ? 



Henchman. 

(il.ASCO. 



Is Malone at home ? 

Henchman. 
That depends on the meaning of the word home. 

Glasco. 
Is Malone here } 

Henchman. 
Go ask his valet; if he knows not, try his harlot. 
Enter Malone. 

Malone. 
Sir, I would I had a better heart to bid you we! 
come. 



IMBROGLIO. 175 

Henchman (Jiis handkerchief to his eyes). 
Sir, I would I had a better heart to bid you— 
farewell. 

Glasco. 

Your wife has answered your petition for divorce, 
and I have called to talk with you concerning it. 

Malone. 
It was very kind of you to come here. 

{^Exeunt Malone and Glasco.) 
Henchman. 
Oh ! he will charge you for it, never fear. 

{Exit Henchman.) 
Re-enter Harold and Hortens. 

Hortens. 

Will you not say what you expect of me } 

Harold. 

I have not dared allow my expectation bloom, 
But have nipped off each tender shooting bud 
And planted it all in soil most sterile. 
But should I tell you that of everything 
Which I would have you do, it would be this: 
Prove, O prove my mother that pure angel 
I was wont to think her ere damnation came. 

Hortens. 

To do this is the end and not the means. 
I thought you had laid out a course for me. 



176 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 
You are the actress, woman, — not I; 
And howsoever good my plan might be, 
If you fail in the actins; it is naught. 
I have provided here a little instrument 
Of man's first inventive genius typical {^produces « 
dagger), 

HORTENS. 

O sir! 

Harold. 
What! shudder and draw back from this? 
Listen ! If all the men this litde devil 
And his brothers, long and short, have taken oflf 
Were in one mighty heap piled up, they'd make 
A pyramid of human skeletons 
Piercing the skies. Booming, noisy cannon 
They have made ashamed, and the smaller guns 
Hold but a lot in this great master's graveyard. 
And look at its bright and glistening sides. — 
Is it not wonderful how man can take 
The black and shapeless metal from the earth 
And make a thing of such exquisiteness ? 
How sharp its edges, that the keenest eye 
Scarcely can see them; and that little point ! 
Is it not a wonderful instrument 
Possessing a most wonderful record 
For killing kings, betrayers, seducers, 
And men in general ? — For, mark you well, 
When this blade cuts through the heart or the lungs, 
Or skull, or rips open the intestines 



IMBROGLIO. 177 

Of a man, not all the quackery invented 

Can scarcely save him. What, do you draw back 

From such an honest, unassuming thing ? 

HORTENS. 

I am a woman, sir, and until now 
Am unaccustomed to such sights and words. 
I pray you nothing you expect from me 
Shall have in common anything with this. 

Harold. 

I did it but to try your honesty. 
Begone before you add the crime of failure 
To dishonesty and make a laughing stock 
Of me. 

HORTENS. 

I swear that I am honest, sir, 
Yet in my honesty but womanly. 
I never thought of taking life, which has 
A certain horror in it makes me shudder. 

Harold. 
No, woman, I would not have you, for the world, 
Crimson your hands with human blood, much less 
The sacred blood that courses in my veins. — 
Partly therein to test you have I done this, 
But ofttimes feigning force elicits truth. 

HORTENS. 

I see the import of your thought, and will 
With all my better judgment act upon it {takes the 
dagger). 



178 IMBROGLIO. 

Harold. 
I like your looks ; — retire to yonder room, 
And when you hear me strike upon this stand, 
Enter and conduct you as you will. 

HORTENS. 

Sir, I would I might be more acquainted 
How I am to act in this strange meeting. 

Harold. 
If you be honest, you will act aright; 
Be guided by the moment's inspiration. 

(^Exit HORTENS.) 

time, from thy portentous womb 
What monster may these moments hence 
Not bring to birth ? No good can come, 
For either way lies infamy. 

Quiet, my soul, my mother comes. 

Enter Catherine, Bourne, Richard, and 

Helen. 

Catherine. 

Harold! 

Harold. 

No, madam, not another word; 
'Twas for another that I sent for you. 

Bourne. 
What want you with me that you bring me here? 

Harold. 
In good time I hope you may find out. 
Behind yonder screen are places for you; 

1 pray you take them and abide events. 



IMBROGLIO. 179 

Bourne. 
As for myself, sir, you can see me here. 

Harold. 
Oh, be not presumptuous ; had I desired 
Especially to see you, I had found you. 

Bourne. 
Indeed you might ; I have not hid. 
Catherine. 

Maurice ! 
Richard. 

Harold, something is very strange in this. 

Helen. 
I know it can impart no good to us. 

Harold. 
Well, well, do as I bid you, or retire. 

Catherine. 
Have patience, Maurice; fear not my children. — 
No sparrow falls except God will it so. 
Harold, we will do your bidding, and trust 
To Providence for our protection. 

{They go behind the screen). 
Enter Henchman. 

Harold. 
Doctor, is my father disengaged? 

Henchman. 
He is in consultation with his lawyer. 



180 IMBROGLIO, 

Harold (aside). 
The fortune of the hour. — Remain here, sir. 

{Exit Harold. 
Henchman. 
There was meaning in that, Remain here, sir — 
Remain ? — Some villainy is stewing here. 
How deadly calm his manner was !— Remain ? 
I think that should be spoken, run away {going). 
Re-enter Harold, M alone and Glasco. 
Malone. 
What want you, Harold, with us in such haste ? 
Harold. 

In short — nay. Doctor, pray you do not go. 

Henchman. 
My presence here — 

Harold. 

Nay, I would have you stay, — 
In short, to hold some counsel with you all 
Touching the matter of your impending suit. 
Not that the subject is a pleasant one, 
But since to meet and fight it we are compelled, 
'Twere best we be prepared against the tricks 
Of the opposing counsel. What answers 
Your wife to your petition for divorce ? 

Malone. 
O Harold, I would we might avoid it ! 

Harold. 
Stuff, sir, — be rnan, not child; what says she.? 



IMBROGLIO. 181 

Glasco. 

She denies her guilt and cross-complains against 

him 
For divorce upon the ground of cruelty. 

Harold. 
The very boldness of a denial 
Such as that covers one with amazement. 
What hope has she to miss the proof 
Of her repeated criminality } 

Malone. 
Harold, I pray, do not refer to it; 
It wrings my heart, and heaven knows how glad 
Would I be here to end it all forever, 
Did such a course not bring such infamy — 
Such foul infamy — upon my children. 

Harold. 
Sir, if you have not more manhood in you 
Than to talk of letting such dishonor 
Pass unnoticed, condoned, forgiven, 
I shall be justified in classing you 
Among the apes, gratefully thanking God 
My parentage is doubtful. Full, complete, 
s the evidence of her adultery. 
Catherine. 
O God ! no, no, no. 

Harold. 
What now; spies .^---what's here? 
{He knocks the screen auer.) 



182 IMBROGLIO, 

By heavens, the very criminal themselves ! {strikes 

table.) 
Infamy, thou has reached thy highest tide 
When such things be. 

Enter Hortens. 

Malone. 
Hortens! why are you here? 
Harold. 
The uninvited guest that spoils our sport ! 
{Aside) Now let them work it out ; it's not my 
play. 

Hortens. 

The disappointment is most agreeable; 
I was afraid I had escaped your memory. 
Harold (aside). 

The start is fair. 

Catherine. 

Amazement strikes me dumb. 

Who are you, lady ? Maurice, who is she ? 

Bourne. 

Till now I never saw her. 

Harolj) (aside). 

Very well. 

Hortens. 

Fear not, I am, none would harm you, madam. 
But have come here to help you if you will. 
Well, have you speech, sir? (To Malone). 



IMBROGLIO, 183 

Henchman {io Malone). 

Who is the woman ? 
Malone. 
I know her not. 

Harold. 

Ha! 

Henchman. 

I am a coward, 
Else a moment since you called her Hortens. 

Harold. 

Well said, old fool ; I heard as much myself. 

Hortens. 

So heard you all, and then he spake the truth, 
But this last moment mysteriously 
Has blotted me from out his memory. 
'Tis possible, since he confessed to me 
Your villainous attempt to ruin 
Yonder woman, he has good reason 
To forget me. 

Harold (aside). 

See, how she strikes him home ! 

Henchman. 

I see it all ; you have ruined your cause 
By making a priest of your mistress. 

Hortens. 

Go, you hireling! 



184 IMBROGLIO. 

Henchman {to Hortens). 

I have no case with you. 
Confessed to her ? Oh, you old imbecile ! — 
I would rather be a dog than a fool. 

{Exit Henchman.) 
Glasco. 
To entice a lawyer in a scheme so vile ! 

{Exit Glasco.) 
Harold. 

Let them be gone, — the whole includes the parts. 
What shall you say to this ? 

Malone. 

That all she says 
Is but a lie. 

Hortens. 

O you coward — liar! 
Catherine. 
Alas, that I have lived to see this day! 

Malone. 
O Harold, to be rich is to be cursed 
With such as these. They are the vampires vile 
That such the blackmail blood of all rich men, — 
Believe her not. 

Hortens. 

Do you see this dagger? 
Catherine. 
Stop! Richard! Harold! Look to her, Maurice! 



IMBROGLIO. 185 

HORTENS. 

No, do not touch me, for my cause is here. 
Responsibility is overweighed in this. 

Catherine. 
O spare his life ; 'tis I am wronged, not you. 

HORTENS. 

Yes, you are wronged in me, and I in you. 
And for our common wrongs I will kill you. 

Malone. 
And this must be the payment for my love. 

Harold. 
Enough, enough, he has confessed enough ! 

Hortens. 
Madam, my work is done. 

(^Exit Hortens, hurriedly.) 
Enter Charlotte. 

Harold (Jo Catherine). 

And you are pure! 
Catherine. 
Oh, miserable of women that I am, — 
The day that proves me honest stabs me thus. 

Malone. 
Charlotte, they are all against me. Angel 
Of my life ! do not desert me, Charlotte. 

Harold. 
Is there no error here — no cunning scheme 
To draw my weakness out ? Where shall I look ? 



186 IMBROGLIO, 

On you {to Catherine), and blind my eyes with 

purity ? 
On you {to Malone), and numb my soul with 

perfidy ? 
On me, and see the ghost of frailty, 
The poor deceived and tortured cause of this ? 

God, how useless seems my useless life ! 
Yet, if by any mighty act — some deed 
Surpassing human strength or bravery, 
Some action godlike in its virtue, 

1 could convince you of my overwhelming love. 
And show that naught but honor has inspired 
My every word and thought and act, — oh, then 
This inward hell would burn with lesser heat. 

Catherine. 
I knew your honor, and for it honored you. 

Harold {to Malone). 
Have you words, — what devil made you do this ? 

Malone. 
I am more sinned against than I have sinned. 
We are not masters of our ways. 

Harold. 

Well, well, 
The reason savors of the vicious act. 
And is as good as any you could give. 
When you have learned the art to put the leaves 
That, broken, mock the beauty of the rose, 
Back in their cheerless sheathe and give them life, 
You may reanimate this shattered state. 

{All stand apart.') 



